


Children of the Force

by lowstandards



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Force Bond (Star Wars), Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Is domestic angst a thing?, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24736660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowstandards/pseuds/lowstandards
Summary: The Force punished its Chosen One, who was meant to bring balance but instead sought darkness.Obi-Wan was left to save him, to hide him from the new Galactic Empire and guide his former Padawan back to the Light on the same desert planet where they met all those years ago. And far away from them the Force nurtures what it has protected, the remaining Jedi and the fire of rebellion, waiting for the Chosen One to return.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 43
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t Padmé‘s words that stopped him. 

And it wasn’t Obi-Wan’s either. 

It’s hard to say exactly what made him stop. 

After killing Master Windu, swearing his allegiance to Sidious, attacking under the Sith’s command. And then he just stopped. 

The Force has been thrown so cosmically off balance, a thousand voices - more than a thousand, a million? Countless, too many, maybe more voices than those that died in that moment, maybe they joined with the voices of everyone ever lost in this pointless conflict, this unwinnable war, every voice ever lost to the Force, lost under the manipulations of Darkness, and not just those who died but everyone who had their freedoms stripped away - but so many voices rising up in anguish, in Fear, then silenced as quickly as they’d come. 

The Force’s Child, the being of Light and Balance, who shone brighter than the twin suns of his home planet, had killed one of his own and sworn allegiance to a path that would cast the Force in Shadow. It would plunge the galaxy into torment, into a pain and enslavement that so many had known as the consequences of war. Now it would be widespread, unavoidable, Inevitable. 

Anakin Skywalker had Fallen. 

The Force mourned, swept up in the cries that mingled through the galaxy, through the universe. Each Being in pain, in suffering even if it did not know it. The Force mourned for balance, for potential and what could have been. It intervened in a little, but impactful way. 

Choices split, fractal futures that could be, all spanning in a moment of decisions. A version of the Chosen One who went to the Temple and slaughtered other children of the Force. A version of the Chosen One whose eyes had turned yellow from the rot within his soul, and who slaughtered and fought without mercy, only anger. This same future would see his wife dead, his friend become an enemy, and all he knew destroyed by his own doing. 

This was not what the Force wanted. Each of these futures, each of these stories passed by in a blink. They happened and ended and continued again in the way Time and Life always do, and the Force chose another path. It chose to secret away those still strong in the Force, but so young in comparison. They would be a hope that all was not lost. 

The Sith Lord commanded he go to Mustafar and end the last threat- the Separatists who threatened the Republic. Somehow the Jedi were forgotten. The lust for diplomatic power, for a sprawling, bloodthirsty Empire overruled the true threat: the Jedi. The Jedi, the Light of the Force, meant to be the calm within the storm of the galaxy. The Order had been executed, but the Temple was forgotten, overlooked. Perhaps the Sith had lived so long in the guise of a diplomat that he fooled himself with delusions of unlimited power. He fooled himself with a Republic with no internal threats. He fooled himself by believing he controlled the Force and that it could not deceive him. 

In any matter, the Force turned bitter and angry at the crimes against it. It felt the wounds of every life lost. It curled in on itself and shielded the Temple as it’s last haven. When the Clones who had been brethren, companions, had their independence taken from them and they turned on their generals, on their friends- the Temple was dark with the Force’s betrayal. But younglings huddled together in the storm of feeling, abandoned in their familiar classrooms. They found solace with one another despite shared fears. Something had gone terribly wrong in the galaxy, but the Force consoled them. They were forgotten, but for once this was a blessing.

It was on that volcanic planet that he stopped. In another reality, this planet would have been his future. It would have been where he built a palace in a desperate attempt to reconnect with what he’d lost, what he had ruined. The heat and magma should only have further ignited that flame within him. In this reality, in what the Force willed, It burned hot and sure long enough for Anakin to cut through the Sepratist leaders and leave their bodies in smouldering heaps. It burned long enough for him to see the Coruscant ship and storm towards it with rage and glowing eyes, ‘saber in hand. The Light within him was melted by it when he raised a hand to choke the one he had devoted his life to, to whom he had promised to give everything. And while she cried that she could not follow this path, and she cried for she realized this was not the man she loved - 

And it indeed had not been that man for a long time, but she had refused to see it; she had refused to see their love was not what they both convinced themselves it was, and she would love him until her dying breath but not with the affection of a wife for that was a trust between them that should have been long abandoned, different lives leading to different values and truly and deeply they never loved one another the way husband and wife should and only now, in this moment of passion and anger and tears and desperation did she truly see they were both wrong and always had been. 

And his former Master yelled with a passion he never showed, that he had kept hidden with layers and years of careful aloofness. He cried out for the Republic, for Democracy. But truly his words held other meanings. For Light, for Companionship, for a trust and love built between them and defying the Order’s rule against attachment but unspoken and therefore unquestioned. 

Both their words fell on deaf ears. Both tears shed and unshed did not break the facade that anger and Darkness had built. It was something internal that broke him. It was something within him, within the blinding Force that extinguished the flame. It quelled his anger and replaced it with an unspeakable emptiness and loss. It was like his Life had been ripped from him in an instant. Perhaps it had been. Perhaps it was his Life that the Force took when it decided it had enough. 

The Force had looked into every future, every life. It saw a million Anakins wreak havoc on a million lives in the blink of second- a blip in a cosmic plan. It saw the galaxy destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again and turn to the same stardust it had all been built from in the first place. It saw its Chosen One fail and succeed and live and die for each and every possible lifetime. And it decided for this one that he would live, but have his gift stripped away- repayment for lives taken, for how he had taken advantage of his role. The Force’s Child with no Force. 

It was enough for the base of his extinguished saber to fall from his grasp and roll on the ground as lifeless and powerless as he felt. It was enough to make the Hero With No Fear drop to his knees. 

Anakin’s emotions had always been as blinding as the Force pulsing within him, but now the emptiness ran deeper. He shed no tears. He did not cry out. His last quip, his last anger flowed away like dust, or sand, into the wind. “If you’re not with me-“ he had bit off with malice and rage but now the phrase hung empty in the air and he kneeled, just as hollow, on the ground. 

Someone who had witnessed both events might have noticed that his posture, his helplessness, was the same as Dooku’s had been. A moment where he had listened to the Sith and slaughtered without mercy, and here he was, again following orders. But now he could not perform, something within him was gone. The anger, the obedience, the hate for everything in the galaxy that had wronged him. 

His arms hung at his sides and even in the presence of the two most important people in his life, Anakin felt alone.

The Force had left him. 

———

It was Obi-Wan who moved first. Always coming in to fix messes without question and with far more devotion and sentiment than one person should have. A soft, but pure Light in the Force. 

He picked up the discarded lightsaber like greeting an old friend. A hundred memories and warnings of him telling Anakin not to lose it,  _ this weapon is your life _ , the words and wisdom not of him, but of his own Master. The man who connected them, who bonded together their stories, their lives. 

He tended to Padmé next. The ship hummed with life, but in an impersonal, clinical fashion. It’s port stood open - not like a gaping maw of some fatal beast, but like a necessary, patient thing. The ship spelled out that their time here was done. Obi-Wan’s discarded robe at its base somehow spoke of home and leaving, there were things to attend to and they really must be going. So he helped her first, the Nabooian Senator who had seen Democracy die and now seemed to allow life to leak out of her as well. No words were spoken. 

The planet churned lava and fire with unforgiving motions, exuding pervasive heat. But the Force felt absent here. It did not teem with life, real or artificial. It had no inhabitants, and now it had no purpose. It was a cog in a well-oiled Sith machine. It had turned smoothly under the guidance of Sidious, hosting his plans of armies and Separatist pawns. Now the plans had come to nothing. The cog had not just jammed, but stopped entirely, been taken out of the machine and thrown into the void of space. It was useless. And still fire raged, heat and sweat being the temporary markers the planet would leave. It would not leave burns or scars. Only memories. 

Not even in his sleep had Anakin ever been this pliant, this silent. Obi-Wan guided him with a soft “It’s over, Anakin,” and whether or not the younger man agreed, he stood with his usual effortless grace. But he seemed burdened by something deeper. A weight had settled in him that removed his confidence, his motivations. 

They left Mustafar. The hum of their craft was the only noise, Obi-Wan piloting with quiet efficiency before he could put it on autopilot. 

The Force raged a storm in the galaxy. Jedi lives gone like fading stars in the sky, bright lights individually extinguished in one shattering moment. Some remained, dimmer ones huddled together, a cluster on a city planet the center of turmoil. A hopeless handful blipped through the cosmos of Force, fighting wavering, going into hiding of dark matter, having to give up their connection to one another, to the Force. They hid themselves away in the secrets of the galaxy, in the truths once revealed to them by the Force, that great equalizer. 

Anakin had not spoken since his accusation lay unfinished. Now his voice held fear, and Obi-Wan supposed even fear was better than emptiness. “It’s Padmé.” It was a confirmation of the same fear that had driven him to this, of loss that he had dreamt of, now unfolding before him. 

His wife was going into labor. 

He had never considered his child the way he did then. It had only been ten days since he’d even known, known he would be a father but that fatherhood would take his wife from him. He’d spent every moment that could have been spent imagining a future as a family thinking only of ways to keep her alive. He had somehow never considered the birth, the real moment it would happen and a child would be born. He had only considered it as those visions of her death flashed through his head, his driving force to conquer even death. The proper motivation, Palpatine had called it. 

“We’re heading back to Coruscant,” Obi-Wan provided no reassurances. Nothing could be done until they made it back to the capital. And even then she could be lost. There were no promises, no saving grace. No powers, neither Dark nor Light would alter this course of events. 

When they landed, darkness surrounded the planet. Dusk had fallen, covering their movements and furthering their discretion. These truly were actions done in the cover of night. 

Bail Organa greeted them and it was through the aid of him and Master Yoda that Padmé was rushed to care. They did not ask about Anakin, a silent audience to the consequences of his own actions. 

“Only the beginning of things, I fear this is,” Master Yoda confided in Obi-Wan as they waited. 

Never before had they spoken so openly of  _ fear _ . But it was part of their teachings that they must name what made them afraid, so better out than in, he supposed. 

“What must be done? Surely others survived as we did.” Obi-Wan’s hand hovered by his chin. His face was lined with worry. 

“Hope they did, we must.” The Grand Master nodded, and he put his small hands together. “The only ones, we are not. Free, the Chancellor is, and seek destruction, he will.” Obi-Wan felt these words held more meaning than the elder would let on. Who else lived? What else was left of the Order? He did not have a chance to voice these questions, for again Master Yoda spoke, a resolute voice. “Leave, we must. Hide. News of an old friend, the Force has shown me. Lost, the Light is not.”

An old friend? But  _ certainly _ not-

“She will be alright.” Senator Organa interrupted, as he was instructed to with news of Padmé. “The children are safe as well.” 

“Children?” Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. This was all too much. 

“Twins,” Organa confirmed. ”A boy and a girl.”

Obi-Wan returned to the medbay, with Bail at his side and Yoda keeping pace surprisingly well. They found Anakin, tears in his eyes, holding one of the children. A medical droid held the other but offered it into Obi-Wan’s arms. He looked down at the child, a wave of unnameable emotion washed over him. It felt so frail but so real and so alive in his arms, trying to move out of how it was swaddled and opening its mouth in soundless fusses. “That’s Leia,” Padmé spoke weakly, her eyes drifting but there was some residual strength, motivated perhaps by love, or maybe by the willpower and fire that had always characterized her. 

Yoda at his side nodded, sage and unsurprised. Resolute despite the mess all their lives had become. “Hope, there still is. Gone from us, the Light is not.” His eyes said more than his words did. 

Obi-Wan felt quite sure this was indeed a new age for himself, and for the whole galaxy. 

———

Anakin had felt an emptiness like nothing else until he was holding his child. When he had left Tatooine, left his mother the first time, he had felt something then. And he had felt something near a decade later when he held her again, only to lose her. He felt something every time he feared Padmé would be taken from him, or Ahsoka or Obi-Wan. But he’d never felt so completely  _ empty _ . Hollowed by what the Force had taken from him. Padmé’s cries did not move him, it was only the placement of a bundled, breathing thing into his arms that shook him. It struck him at his core, tears welling in his eyes and his lungs stuttering. Emotion waved back over him with the power of Kamino storms. 

Tears ran down his cheeks, still dirty from the heat and dust of the volcanic planet, and he choked on a mix of joy and desperation. This was his child - one of his children. He was a father, and somehow had already failed so substantially in his duties. 

He did not listen to (or rather, did not process) the words said to him when his child, his son, Luke, was taken from him. 

———

“Tatooine.”

“No.”

“It isn’t up for debate.” 

Obi-Wan knew it was the best place to go. He also knew before he’d even said it that Anakin would hate it. 

“Is this Yoda’s idea, a way of torturing me?” Anakin scoffed, and wouldn’t make eye contact. Obi-Wan trusted they wouldn’t have to take him anywhere for him to feel tortured. But he wasn't going to press that matter, and he was honestly quite relieved with the fact that Anakin was speaking so openly in the first place. 

“He’s still  _ Master _ Yoda, Anakin.” Obi-Wan shook his head, and turned his attention back to the rush of hyperspace flying passed them. 

That was less true- if the Order was gone then he was no longer Grand Master Yoda. He was just Yoda, a remnant of a dead myth. He was too, he supposed. Obi-Wan was dead, and so was every other Jedi. Even Anakin was gone, replaced by the idea of Darth Vader- a cold and murderous Sith pawn. Nothing was as it should be. The Force was frigid with loss and mourning. 

They had allowed Anakin time with his children, but Obi-Wan doubted he heard a word they said. He agreed that they needed to hide, though he disliked the isolation of knowing this would be the last he saw Yoda, or Bail, or anyone from his life. Anakin would come with him to Tatooine, where they were sure Sidious would not look for them. If for even a moment there really had been a Vader, he would never have returned to his home planet. There they would be safe from the Empire, and there they would take Luke as well. Leia was to be entrusted to Bail, who promised to raise her as his own. And of course Padmé would be with her. If Obi-Wan were another man, the idea of it all might have been daunting, but he compartmentalized things, his duty-bound nature led him to question none of these plans as he prepared the ship. It was only once they’d made the jump that he even told Anakin. 

“It’s a way of making sure the new Empire doesn’t find you. We don’t have a wealth of options.” 

Anakin frowned. 

Obi-Wan already knew every possible complaint that would roll off his tongue: a sand planet, a slave planet, where his mother had died. They were valid arguments under any usual circumstances, but these were not such easy times. 

When they landed, Anakin held Luke and said nothing. There was no question of taking his child from him. And Obi-Wan had to dock the ship anyway, and work on finding somewhere for them to stay. Somewhere to live. 

The twin suns were close to setting and Obi-Wan knew they would have very little time to find somewhere to settle for the night, for they could not leave Mos Eisley once night fell. 

“We will have to stay in the ship for tonight, but tomorrow there is a home in the Jundland Wastes I would like to see.” Obi-Wan returned from speaking to some shopkeepers, and paid to have their vessel docked. Once they found somewhere to live, they’d need to part with it. There was no use keeping it. 

“There’s no homes out there,” Anakin stated, watching Obi-Wan take off a now sand-coated cloak. Tatooine was comprised of a number of small towns and sprawling smuggler cities, and any structure outside of those was either a moisture farm or a native settlement. There weren’t just random houses stuck into the Dunes. No one would be able to survive that way. 

“It’s an abandoned structure, something from when the Core thought there could be mining profit here.” It did not need emphasizing that the only profit the desert planet saw was in its slave trade and other dealings through the Hutt. “It’s our best option. We can’t stay in a city, and I’m not really prepared to buy and run a whole moisture farm.”

“And what do we do now?”

In any situation like this, where they were stuck in limbo on a planet, Anakin was always restless. He would want to leave the ship and sneak around and get their mission over with and get in as much trouble as he could find along the way. Now he didn’t even seem interested in moving. He held Luke, who seemed equally disinterested in everything, but he was an infant and had an excuse. 

“For tonight, we stay on the ship. There are ration bars and water-“

“That’s not what I meant.”

Obi-Wan rubbed a hand down his face and did not look at Anakin. It was a question he did not want to think about because he did not have an answer. He thrived on practicality, knowing what to do and when to do it, or at least having some idea of the situation at large. But the Empire, Palpatine was the Sith Lord, the Jedi wiped away in a moment- it was all too much. He wanted,  _ needed _ to meditate, but feared what he would find in the Force. Would it even feel the same after so much loss?

It had been shrouded in Darkness for so long, something which all the Jedi admitted to. All of them felt that inky, suffocating cloud over their connection to the galaxy, the Force shrouded in a haze of Dark, Sith power which culminated in this- their own extermination. It had prevented them from seeing clearly, it had led them perfectly along the exact threads of Sidious’ web that doomed them. On Coruscant - in that Temple he could never hope to return to, the Light from centuries of Jedi, their companionship and their shared power - Life and Serenity were imbued into the very building in which they lived. It was a beacon of energy and Life, the clearest point of their connection to the Force, honed over generations. It was a connection he would always mourn, and a loss that left him floundering. Obi-Wan felt, rather helplessly, that it was only that level of Living Force that could make him see even a glimmer of light at the end of this perfectly constructed Sith Hell. But all of that was gone. The only light now had come from the two setting suns of desert Tatooine, light years away from the crumbling remains of the Republic. Here, local life hummed like nothing had changed, and all the stars shimmered much like the life forces of the Jedi once had. 

Obi-Wan was more afraid now than he ever had been before, and the last few days had been quite sure to test that limit. He cast a glance at Anakin, who looked exhausted and expectant, very much like the child he’d met on this same sand all those years ago. And now there was a new child, the one swaddled and held in his father’s arms. He slept as peacefully as most in the galaxy probably did, unaware of the violent tides of change at hand. Unaware of the Sith malevolence that had turned the Republic into Empire, that had turned Jedi into Sith and decimated all opposition. It was a pain that made Obi-Wan’s eyes burn with tears he would not allow himself to shed. 

He breathed a heavy sigh, filling his lungs with dry air for the first night of many. Still in his Jedi robes and over cloak- remnants of a past he would have to leave behind the same as everything else - he already felt that pervasive heat their new home was famous for. Home- that made it sound willing. But this was all they had, the hope that hiding out here would do some good. Tatooine. A place Vader would never return to, the one place that Sidious would never look. He could not let himself think of where Yoda went, where any other Jedi now hid away. To think of that meant wondering how many were left to hide, which was not an answer he wanted. It seemed in the end, the war had won. Neither side was meant to come out victor, not when they were ruled by the same man. Republic and Separatist were all the same in the end, and both had lost. The war had won, and it had killed the Jedi. 

The Force knew better, it had kept its own hopes and protected its children from the war’s last, rallying assault. It had promised the galaxy the chance to fight again, perhaps when its heroes were older, wiser. But to Obi-Wan, none of this was known, and it would not be for much time to come. 

To him, there was only this planet, the sweat on his skin, and dunes of both sand and melancholy possibility. 

“And now, we keep going, as we always must.”


	2. Chapter 2

They were living on Tatooine for a week before the first problem arose. 

Really, it was rather that a week had passed before Obi-Wan _allowed_ them to confront what had been a glaringly obvious problem since before they’d even moved in. 

This abandoned house was abandoned for a reason and absolutely not fit for them to live in. They were tired enough for those first days, and busy enough just _cleaning_ for the rest of them that finally, after a week, it needed to be addressed. Nothing worked. There were no functioning utilities, not the sonic or anything. And if there was anything that Obi-Wan Kenobi understood, it was not how to fix machines. 

For better or for worse, he had with him the best pilot in the galaxy, who at nine had built a protocol droid that outshone the models made even a decade and a half later, who was trusted with every kind of machine just about as long as he’d been able to talk. 

“You’re the one who wanted to live on this Force forsaken planet!” Which Obi-Wan considered very much the wrong phrase to use. The whole galaxy felt Force forsaken. “You could at least let me fix things so we don’t die out here!”

Obi-Wan sighed. They hardly had the supplies to fix anything, but they couldn’t live like this forever. It was true they could hardly _live_ at all, surely staying like this would kill them. Maybe he wanted it as punishment, for himself and maybe Anakin too. Let them rot in the Wastes of Tatooine, to be covered by sand and forgotten by the rest of the galaxy as Darkness descended. But this was a fate he could not wish for Luke. 

“And if you want us to not rely on anyone else, we’ll need a functioning moisture vaporator!”

Anakin had clearly been dissatisfied with that detail on top of everything else. Obi-Wan considered it necessary. As a Jedi, he was a wanted traitor to the Galactic Empire, and Anakin was the Sith Emperor’s Chosen One, his apprentice who all his plans hinged around. With those being their unchangeable circumstances he thought maintaining some sense of isolation from the rest of the civilized planet was essential. Anakin disagreed, and quite adamantly. 

Maybe it was because they were going to disagree on everything now, and the urgency of staying alive had fallen away enough for them to finally realize it. After a week, some of that initial shock and exhaustion had faded. It was not just their amenities that were broken, but everything they had. Everything between them would need to be confronted eventually, but Obi-Wan hoped to put that off until he could sit without sand in very uncomfortable places. 

“Very well. I can get to Tosche Station and see what there is to be done-“

“Oh come on, you wouldn’t even know what we need. And if someone tried to sell you bum parts for a high price, you’d fall for it.”

“Anakin-“

“ _No_! Come on, Obi-Wan. Let me go-“

“Someone has to watch Luke-“

“Then _you_ watch him!” It was so strange to see him angry. Obi-Wan had always known his friend to wear his emotions like a banner, but after Mustafar, it was different. He knew how quickly Anakin’s anger could darken, and how dangerous it was. Before, he had always thought it was passion and excitement, which he dismissed as harmless. Now he knew better. Anakin’s face was darkened with annoyance (not quite anger) but it was marred with something that shouldn’t now be eerily familiar, but unfortunately was: betrayal. “What, Obi-Wan? Don’t you trust me to go out on my own?”

Trust was not something he could easily speak of. Did he trust Anakin? He didn’t even know. He trusted that Anakin knew what supplies they would need, and trusted Anakin to be discreet in his purchases. He trusted Anakin to not want Luke to suffer, just as he didn’t. But he did not trust what Anakin felt, or who he was. Their bond in the Force, that had remained even when their training was well over, was now gone. It was like Anakin was empty. Obi-Wan could sense him less than he could sense the sand. 

The once renowned Negotiator looked out the port to Tatooine’s bright primary. These were troubles he could not think of. He needed to focus on the now, and cast those thoughts into the Force. But the Force was not what it once was, his connection felt stilted, and the great cosmic unknown was near to unreceptive. A poor substitute, he brought an inhale through his nose, and let it out sharply, it was as much a meditation as he could manage.

“I will watch Luke,” he conceded. “You are right, I wouldn’t know what I was doing.”

Anakin looked smuggly pleased with this answer, which Obi-Wan did not enjoy seeing, but supposed he understood. He did not know what their future held, it was a path that would always elude them. He did know, with some tragic certainty born not from the Force, but from familiarity, that for the time being, this was the only Anakin he would know. Whatever kind boy and dedicated hero he had known was replaced with a cruel man who failed as both Jedi and Sith. Something within him was missing, something as crucial as his character. This Anakin would take pleasure in every little way that Obi-Wan gave ground, in each concession and guilty look. And there were plenty of those to be found. 

“There’s so many times I would have given anything to hear you say that.” Anakin stated, and some of that unkind coldness in his eye had melted. It was replaced with some sad resemblance of the humor that used to color their conversations. An attempt at connection, one that Obi-Wan could not afford to deny. 

“Then I should have said it more. I believe now is the best time to leave, if you would like to get back safely before nightfall.”

For a moment there was peace, a mutual trust. Obi-Wan had to trust that Anakin would buy what they needed to live, and Anakin would have to trust Obi-Wan to look after his son. Not like either of them had much choice. 

He watched Anakin mount their scrappy speeder (purposefully of less than standard quality, to not arouse suspicion) and fly off to Anchorhead. Which left him with the still important duty of babysitting. Obi-Wan ducked back into the house- he was never quite sure how to refer to it. Home sounded too domestic and normal. And the domed building wasn’t a _house_ , it was essentially a cave. Yet _cave_ was on the opposite spectrum as home, neither one properly encompassing what this building was. A base, he supposed, if he wanted to convince himself this was as impersonal as every other mission. But this could not be a Jedi mission when there were no more Jedi, and the great team Kenobi and Skywalker, was no more. Both former members were present, but the _Team_ was not. 

None of those were the _important_ details though. What Obi-Wan cared about was the bundle laid in the cleanest part of their lackluster situation. A makeshift bed, a makeshift _crib_ , for the infant Luke Skywalker. He was so gentle, sleeping now and allowing Obi-Wan peace in his task. 

He had never considered children before, not with any individual thought. He had no reason to, afterall. As a Jedi, he would not have kids of his own, and instead would have a Padawan at most. And considering his only Padawan had been _Anakin_ , the relationship was entirely different. Of all the things they were to one another, _that_ was not a dynamic their relationship filled. Though Obi-Wan frequently thought of him as an _unruly_ child, he wasn’t a _child._ Anakin had grown up quickly, maturing in both physicality and skill in the relatively short years of his apprenticeship. So for no reason had Obi-Wan Kenobi ever considered he would be taking care of an infant. He hoped it would come to him much more naturally than machines did. He had always been better with organic things- plants and animals, just not droids. Surely a child was more along the lines of the former. Obi-Wan groaned and dropped his head into his hands. This was truly pathetic. _He_ was truly pathetic. 

“But what do you care?” Obi-Wan asked in a soft voice, looking at Luke as though he could actually answer. “You just care about eating and sleeping. How easy you have it.” 

Shockingly, Luke did not respond. He stayed sleeping, his small mouth open and closing a little with his equally small breaths. 

Sitting near him, Obi-Wan let his eyes close and reached out in the Force. He reached out so every sensation was his own, so he was a part of the dust and the walls, the broken sonic in the fresher, and even Luke’s steady breathing. It was the first time he had meditated since they’d been on Tatooine. 

Which meant it was the first time he’d meditated since the fall of the Republic, the fall of the Jedi, the loss of everything he’d known. Part of him wanted to grieve, but even grief was an attachment. 

Though, if there were no more Jedi, was that a rule he had to abide by anymore? Now, in this time of galactic peril, perhaps attachments would be stronger than letting everything go. Well, letting things go was what he had always managed, but not forming attachments in the first place, he had failed at. In that regard, Anakin was always an exception. Not only was he undeniably an attachment, but the one Obi-Wan could not give up. Even sitting here with Luke, Anakin was with him. And he was sure that if things had gone differently on Mustafar, he still would keep Anakin with him in whatever way he could. 

That knowledge only hurt him further. It meant he had failed himself as Jedi, so of course he had failed Anakin as his Master. 

Behind his eyelids, tears stung him, even in Tatooine's dry heat. He was dehydrated, tears were not something he could afford. Tears were not something he could allow himself. His pain didn’t matter, he was not the victim- it was the galaxy he had failed. The Force was what truly suffered. 

But what Obi-Wan did not know was that the Force was very tired of people making assumptions about it. It was very tired of hearing its own existence being used as an excuse for inaction, and very tired of egotistical villains believing they controlled what they could not. It was tired of watching the galaxy suffer, so to Obi-Wan, it offered a guiding hand, or rather a guiding voice. It offered this as hope, for it saw in Obi-Wan a chance for things to be right again. Obi-Wan, who had been destined to train only those that were the brightest in the Force. Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, and his children, whose connection to the Force they would always owe to old Kenobi. And even the Padawan of his Padawan, who was just as crucial to the True Will of the Force as Obi-Wan was. So the Force opened up and spoke, replying to Obi-Wan’s sense of failure. And it spoke in a familiar baritone. 

_Do not blame yourself, my friend._

Obi-Wan did not know how long he had sat in his usual meditation, letting the Force flow through him, but his eyes shot open when he received an answer. 

Yoda had spoken of an old friend, and somehow Obi-Wan had known even then exactly who he’d meant, but to hear that voice again after all those years shook him. Still, he did not understand how this could be- Not all Jedi were gifted with visions as Anakin was (though _gifted_ was, for obvious reasons, a subjective term) and even then Obi-Wan knew of no story where a Jedi was _haunted_ by their former Master. 

But with his eyes open, Obi-Wan’s senses came crashing to the space around him. To the present. The interior shadows had lengthened and he saw Luke blinking open his eyes. 

In the moment that he heard the voice- _felt_ it as much as he had heard it - the Force has seemed clear and bright. He felt a part of the universe again, connecting to the bonds between all things. But with his eyes open, reminded of where he was, the spark dimmed. His attention was instead drawn to Luke, and not to the lingering itch in his mind of reconnecting with the Force. 

All the child cared about was to eat and sleep, he repeated to himself, so Obi-Wan lifted him, a bundle of life and blankets. Just as they had little in the way of working machines, they had little in the way of supplies. He trusted that eventually they would find some routine, some groove of life and maintenance that would take those deficiencies away. Until then, they would operate day to day, with a focus on what Luke needed, since neither man was interested in thinking about himself. 

When Anakin returned, the twin suns were much lower, but he had equipment to unload before he considered his task done. It was easier to focus on what needed to be done than to step back and look at their whole situation. As much as he wanted to go back inside to see Luke, he did not want to see Obi-Wan, or do anything to confront the life he now had. But it was not something he could run from.

“I thought I asked you to watch my son, not take a nap.”

Obi-Wan sat with his legs crossed, back straight but relaxed. Luke lay near him, in the same place where he was when Anakin left, even though hours had passed. In that time, Obi-Wan had indeed fed and cleaned the child, because he was not entirely lost in the fundamentals of caring for another being. He also kept trying to return to his meditations and re-spark whatever connection he had made to his former Master. But whatever he had heard for that one moment was gone. He couldn’t find Qui-Gon again, not anywhere but in those painful memories. Obi-Wan, so distracted by that glimmer of hope so quickly snuffed out by his inability to find it again, had not noticed how the hours passed. 

He opened his eyes, “How lucky I am then that you will find him ever the picture of health.”

Anakin frowned, but there was nothing to argue over. Luke was looking around in that dazed way that babies did, a little distracted but he had no concept of anything so that made sense. He was exactly as he should be, waving his tiny hands and opening his mouth with little purposeless movements. 

“I’d prefer you were actually _watching_ him, not sitting there with your eyes shut.”

Obi-Wan knew that they _both_ knew that wasn’t how meditation worked. For someone not connected to the Force, then maybe yes, it was like he was sitting there eyes shut, feeling nothing. But what it was _like_ and what it _was_ were different things. What it truly was, and this they _both_ knew, was a connection to everything, both living and not, that Obi-Wan could see. He was just as aware of Luke as if, for that moment, he was Luke. 

“I know you preferred your own methods of _moving_ meditation, but I would still be glad to guide you-“

“No.”

Obi-Wan had intended it as another gesture, like Anakin’s empty humor, to pretend things were fine. He could offer very little, but hopefully extend peace of mind. More than that, he thought it essential, but perhaps for selfish reasons. He did not know how he could have blinded himself to Anakin’s Fall, and he did not know why Anakin would _choose_ to fall in the first place. The Force gave no answers. But regardless of choice and understanding, there was still impending confrontation. Anakin had made a choice that, by betraying the Jedi, betrayed Obi-Wan. And maybe if he offered a hand, Anakin would take it, and they could sit together and pull apart his thoughts and work out the darkness of confusion like they always had. 

But Anakin’s answer left no room. “No.” He had said, with a voice of the same deep smoke that he’d heard on Mustafar. 

Obi-Wan passed a breath through him, feeling the air in his lungs. To grieve was an attachment and he _must_ let go. “Very well, I understand.”

But again Anakin surprised him. Maybe what he heard was not the smoke and anger of the planet that had been meant to kill one of them, but it was desperation. Anakin’s eyes glistened and for a moment Obi-Wan saw a glimpse of the man he knew. The man he loved. But he could not linger on that affection because the shock of Anakin’s words was too deep. 

“It wouldn’t do anything. I… The Force abandoned me. I can’t feel it anymore.”

When Anakin frowned, it was always so severe. His smile was a dazzling thing, a contagious look that always made Obi-Wan feel at peace even when his former Padawan was just being cheeky. But his frown, when his face lined and his brows sat low and unmoving, there was a terrible darkness to him. It was in that expression that all the truths and horrors of his life revealed themself- the confusion and determination of his childhood as a slave, leaving his mother, fearing rejection from the Order, then constantly battling attachment, losing his mother, now losing everything. It was a darkness Obi-Wan could not fight off, nor could bear to see the effects of it. Again, he considered it only a failing on his part. 

The Force has left him. 

Obi-Wan didn’t even know that could _happen_ , and out of _everyone-_

Anakin was the Chosen One. Qui-Gon has risked everything on that certainty, Master Windu had seen Anakin as the fulcrum of the galaxy. There were no doubts. But if the Force had left him, that above all things destroyed the prophecy of Balance. 

But Obi-Wan had not trained him because of _prophecy_ or the idea that Anakin was naturally gifted. Those were the reasons that the small slave boy on Tatooine had caught his former Master’s eye. Those were the reasons Qui-Gon - who believed every story was true anyways, whether out of superstition or faith, Obi-Wan was never sure - was willing to force him through the trials to take on a new Padawan. Those were the reasons the old Jedi’s dying words were of Anakin, setting in motion a promise to train him. Those reasons presented Obi-Wan with the obligation to train him, but it was still his choice. Though truly, there was never a choice. He never would have decided not to train him. Some part of him always knew. He always knew Anakin’s potential, his capacity to grow. He wanted to see it, wanted to be there. 

And thus it became his pride, to see his dearest one grow in the Force. But also his tragedy, to watch Anakin always overcome with the conflict of war, attachment, responsibilities no one should have to manage. It was no wonder he could not meditate and let his mind be alone with his thoughts without succumbing to some darker feelings. 

However, Obi-Wan could not even sense that darkness in the Force. Anakin indeed felt empty. It clicked into place, finally made sense. He’d thought some part of his character gone, and that’s exactly what it was. Like his soul was ripped away, Anakin’s connection to everything was taken from him. 

In his meditations, he knew the Force was changed. Apathetic, distant. Like it was an observer. Obi-Wan could not have been more wrong, but of course, he did not know this. The Force has never been so active before, so controlling of the galaxy it fed and the beings that filled it. The Force held out hope, deciding on mercy for the galaxy, which meant justice against its Child. In the name of greater good, the Will of the Force was to see Anakin Skywalker suffer. He had been ungrateful and taken advantage of his gifts, so the Force took them back. So to Obi-Wan and Anakin, in their cave on Tatooine, caring for a child and discovering a friend long lost, the Force and the well-being of the greater galaxy seemed the least of their concerns. 

For the moment, they were on their own, they believed. It was nearly a luxury, and one that was entirely new to them. But really, the Force has put them on the sidelines, directing its attentions elsewhere and trusting that its Chosen One would find his way back to the Light. It would take a little time, but Obi-Wan would get him there. Obi-Wan would train him, guide him as he was always meant to. 

Tatooine has settled into rich purples and crimsons. Mustafar’s heat had been cruel and unforgiving, an impersonal burn of a fire meant only to destroy. The desert planet’s aridity was far more pervasive and dry - sand truly did get everywhere - but somehow, there was life to it. There was the ancient life of the planet, when it had once been teeming with lush green plants and bodies of water. Those were long gone, but the friendliness of growth stayed. In Mustafar’s heat, something had died, but it could be reborn. Under the light of two setting suns, one a passionate vermillion and the other a subdued gold, in a sky awash with purple and orange, Skywalker was meant to grow. Once it was one, and now two lived in this Outer Rim, both destined to thrive under the watch of old Kenobi, a relic of an Order not as dead as he thought. 

Anakin was not unlike his home planet. Somewhere deep within him, the Force still echoed, just like the fossils of Tatooine. Obi-Wan could not see the future, he did not have visions, nor could he see shatter points, but there was a glimmer of _something_ , even if it was just wishful thinking. 

As his Master, it had always been Obi-Wan who pressed forward in conversations, and Anakin who retreated. He broached every sensitive subject with great caution and an invitation to listen and understand, and without fail Anakin would change the subject. It had happened so many times, over every possible topic of conversation: his training, his mother, Tatooine, his Padawan, Padmé, the Council, the Chancellor, and so many other things. Sometimes Obi-Wan began things with “It is not your fault, listen to the Force,” but that would clearly be the wrong thing to say now. And it was already so unlike Anakin to admit to any failings or weaknesses- Obi-Wan hadn’t needed to probe for this discovery. Just another way to be thrown off balance, he supposed. 

But what possible wisdom could he offer? Neither of them knew anything of what could happen, he could make no promises and speak no truths. He had nothing to give in consolation. Did Anakin view his own meditation as a taunt- a torturous reminder of what he could no longer do? Some guilt clawed at him, the knowledge this wasn’t Anakin's fault. It was not his fault the Force left him, it was not his fault Palpatine used him. If there was anything that could drive Obi-Wan Kenobi to anger, to _rage_ , it was the insult and abuse against his former Padawan that had robbed him of the ability to be the man they all knew he could be. 

But still there was the glimmer of something, which turned the darkening cloud within Obi-Wan’s own thoughts into a mist of possibility. The usual caution was gone from his voice- they were well past the need for hesitation. He would get nowhere bumbling through conversations so Anakin might stay calm. His voice was hard-edged and certain. “The Force has not left you entirely.”

He knew this because it did not truly leave any of them. It had not left Qui-Gon, who had instead become a part of it. It was not absent from Luke just because of his youth. It was always there, even in those who were not sensitive to it. And some curling, instinctual feeling told him he was right. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, trying to write domestic stuff: how the fuck do babies work

The Force had never been so active before, but it had a lot of catching up to do. It was no longer wise to hint at a certain thing and watch it happen, like tiles falling into place or the reverberations across a web. No, the Force needed to be active. It  _ needed _ to extend tendrils of guidance wherever it could. On Tatooine, it kept a lazy, watchful eye, trusting Kenobi and offering him his old Master when he needed him. It extended the same on Dagobah, where the Force pulsed like the heart of the swamp planet. To these old Jedi Masters, it gave them memories and ghosts, but guidance all the same. It trusted their wisdom, and that in time they would be ready for when the galaxy needed them again. 

But elsewhere the Force had already taken a stand. It had begun on Coruscant, when it hid away its children from the murderous eyes of the Sith. And then it whispered in the ear of one who was a Jedi at heart, though no longer in name. It guided her to protect those who would already see and trust her, knowing her kind face and her story. It made to her a promise that this was not the end. 

It made that promise to others, though they considered it determination, for they could not sense the Force. That promise was their own drive and passion to see the galaxy restored and see their people safe. Those friends of the Jedi who would lead the Force into a new age, who were just as important as the Chosen One in restoring Light. 

As for this Chosen One, it was with uncharacteristic apathy that he regarded his return to Tatooine. Well- it was not apathy at first. Then it had been anger, mostly directed at his companion, but truly and deeply it was with himself. But that anger had nowhere to go, it boiled up, hot and explosive like the core of the planet that had changed him, but there was no eruption. He had drawn everything from the power inside him, and with that gone, his fire went out in a puff of smoke. He was resigned to anything. Obi-Wan said they would go to Tatooine, so go they must. Obi-Wan found them a home in the Jundland Wastes, so this was where they would live. Obi-Wan found them supplies, a speeder, and sold their ship, which finalized their situation. Obi-Wan said the Force was still within him, which he did not believe, but could not argue with. How could he convey what it was to have lost that? It was not a life in pain, which the Force had kept him from. 

If he had not changed on Mustafar, then he would have lived his future in constant agony, more machine than man. But it wasn’t the loss of limbs and conversion to metal and wire that would have taken his humanity- it would have been the Light he had abandoned when his body burned. The goodness would have turned to ash along with everything else. And that was the future the Force had protected him from. A future of unending pain until eventually, he died. 

So this was not pain, it was emptiness. He’d always felt a drive, an itching desire to seek more, but that was gone. He cared for his child, he made their home liveable, and he thought of nothing else. He thought of nothing at all- he wouldn’t allow it. He could not think of his past, and he did not believe that he had a future. So he could not tell Obi-Wan that he was wrong, but he considered it the one thing he was certain of. Anakin Skywalker knew the Force had left him. Somehow, this was the only thing that brought him peace. 

But the whole galaxy, the strings tying it together and lighting it with life and will, were already so thrown off balance that what was a little tip in the dynamic of the Team? A Sith Emperor ruled the whole galaxy was his domain, so why not turn the tides and make Obi-Wan the source of power? It was once the Stubborn Padawan and Resigned Master. Now it was the opposite. Anakin did not argue because he hopelessly considered that nothing would come of it. Obi-Wan said the Force was still there, and together they would find it. He did not agree. 

Anakin stood under the bright heat of two suns. Obi-Wan sat in the still-hot shade, Luke rested in his lap. Some standard months had passed, and if they had to they could figure out how long it had been since the Fall, but they tried not to. Somehow, specifying the time that had passed was too painful. Their best marker of change was Luke, who liked to stare at everything and smile. He could sit up and reach for things and sometimes was quite needy for attention, but he always seemed happy. He could not stand on his own and made no attempts at speech, but it didn’t matter. He was an undeniable Light, and easily the only thing motivating them to care for themselves or one another. 

There Anakin stood, sweat carving out patterns of dirt and sand on his skin. His legs were apart, shoulder-width, and he breathed deeply through his nose. Meditative inhales and exhales, a familiar push and pull of air through his lungs. His eyes were closed to the dizzying brightness of sun on sand. 

Obi-Wan watched. They both had furrows between their brows and frowns on their faces. He could feel a pull in his gut, a teetering on some precipice. He stared, ever observant, thinking this was the moment-

“I can’t do it!” Anakin threw his hands up, whipping around. His face was red and golden, skin tanned but flushed. He looked so much like he had as a Padawan, frustrated with not being able to quiet his mind and meditate. He could see the frustration getting to him- and maybe it was shame too. What is a Chosen One without any power?

Obi-Wan knew with perfect clarity that the way he confronted this new Anakin had to be entirely different. It was why their conversions were either entirely stilted or horrible echoes of their once natural flow. For comfort or necessity they were both fighting for something that was lost and undeniably changed. They could kid themselves with empty smiles, but on the whole, the Team was gone. Kenobi and Skywalker. That whole dynamic, that  _ trust _ had evaporated. But what was worse was what hadn’t changed. What remained was a permanent torment, a reminder of attachment that Obi-Wan could not let himself think about. Just as Anakin would not think of everything he had ruined, Obi-Wan would not let himself think of the things he could not let go. It was all too painful. 

Because deep down Obi-Wan knew he loved him, and he always would. He had loved him on Mustafar, when his eyes were golden with hate and Padme lay on the ground. He had loved him even then. He would have loved him still if his power had not left him and they had battled, two blue lightsabers clashing like the lava under their feet, two individuals who knew one another as extensions of themselves taking part in a dance of Light and Dark that ultimately boiled down to them: Obi-Wan and Anakin. It was no more than that, and certainly no less. 

There was a disappointment that above all things, he could not admit. Anakin’s certainty was that the Force had left him. Obi-Wan’s was that it had not. 

He settled for something he felt was half true- believing that Anakin was not trying hard enough but he couldn’t accuse him of that. “It is alright.” Which it was not. “The Temple is a focus point of Force energy, it helps us when we are young. It helped you then, and I am sorry we do not have that help now.” Of course, just blame it on the loss of generations of Jedi energy and tradition. It had nothing to do with Anakin as an individual. 

What he thought was a way of freeing Anakin of blame didn’t, the younger man did not look reassured. 

Obi-Wan thought he had truly known him, that even without the Force he would know Anakin’s thoughts and feelings. Their months on Tatooine had shown him otherwise. Anakin looked only more troubled as he asked a question Obi-Wan would have feared if he knew it was coming. 

“What happened to the Temple?”

Anakin still stood in the sun, and Obi-Wan had to squint to look at him. It marred his face with even more lines, even more sadness. 

The Temple. Bail had told him what he could, though he had already sensed tremendous grief surrounding his old home. 

Obi-Wan gave a long-suffering sigh and admitted one of the secrets of their galaxy he had not wanted to trouble Anakin with. But perhaps those kindnesses could no longer be afforded anyway- perhaps he should not go so easy on his former Padawan who undeniably shared  _ some  _ blame (at the very least) for the destruction of their home. 

“Bail said he found it on fire. No one was there but a small clone group clearing out. He wanted to know why the Senate Emergency Response wasn’t there and the army was. They said-“ And at this he had to pause. Anakin needed to know the truth, the full extent of his actions. But still there was a protective urge to hold back. “A legion had already cleared the Temple of the Jedi rebellion.”

Anakin found none of this comforting, but Obi-Wan’s hesitation least of all. “Do you know which legion?”

Like it would be even more reassuring to know the names of the clones that had destroyed the Temple, like it would only further the betrayal so heavily stacked against them. Their own men, brothers forced to kill them. 

“Bail said… He said  _ he _ didn’t see any sign of them, and the clones on site were unmarked.” But by delaying his answer, it was already clear. Force connection or not, Anakin knew what the next words out of Obi-Wan’s mouth would be. “They said the 501st had cleared the Temple. The 501st had gotten rid of the Jedi insurgents.”

At this point, Anakin felt like he should have been used to the cold shock of their new reality. He should have been used to cosmic-scale loss and mourning, and losing all the trust that had carried him through the war. His own men? It couldn’t be- 

But he supposed they  _ were _ still stationed in Galactic City- While Anakin was on his home base mission to spy on the Chancellor, his legion was equally at the Sith‘s disposal. So when the moment came and the clones turned, there his very own men were: trained and programmed to kill. 

And as if that wasn’t enough already, Obi-Wan added “They said Commander Rex had made sure of it.”

He’d last seen the newly promoted Commander Rex when he sent him off with Ahsoka to Mandalore. If he’d been back, then whether or not their mission was successful and Maul was taken care of, then it must have meant-

He knew Obi-Wan was thinking the same even if they did not say it. 

But it must have meant Ahsoka was gone. 

“I’m going to check on the new vaporator.”

Obi-Wan said nothing, but shielded his eyes from Anakin, looking at Luke instead. The child had a sure grip around one of Obi-Wan’s fingers and was repeatedly picking up and flinging a toy. He was happy, unaffected by the news his father had heard. 

There was so much loss they’d already been certain of. The whole Jedi Order was gone, the implications of that were quite clear. Obi-Wan had felt it when it happened. So many voices gone in an instant. He could not ask if Anakin felt the same, because to do so would prompt him more. 

How could he have felt the horror of that and continued? How could he know that the family they had known, innocents and heroes, were killed off- a genocide- and still he fought for Darkness? So he could not ask because to do so would unleash fury and grief. 

And even grief was attachment. Obi-Wan breathed, passing it on as he always did. 

He wanted to attempt his own deeper connection to the Force, wanted to find again what he hadn’t since a week after the Fall. That’s when he’d heard Qui-Gon, and hadn’t been able to find him again. Obi-Wan remembered his voice so distinctly 

_ Do not blame yourself _ but what else could he do? 

And then the last part,  _ my friend _ . 

It wasn’t that Qui-Gon had never called him that, but hearing it then, thinking of it now, it meant something more. Usually, his Master had said it to other Jedi of equal status, the way he casually referred to both Mace Windu and Master Yoda:  _ my friend _ . Sometimes they were my  _ old _ friend though. Obi-Wan had usually been  _ my Padawan _ or my  _ young _ friend. It was a way of reminding him of his youth, his inexperience. Now it echoed in his head,  _ my friend _ , like he was on equal standing with his former Master, long joined with the Force. That was an honor he did not feel deserving of. If he could only find him again he could apologize. He needed to tell Qui-Gon that he had failed him too, by letting Anakin Fall. His dying wish and Obi-Wan had failed him. 

While Anakin was distracting himself from those same thoughts, Obi-Wan lifted Luke into his arms. It wasn’t much cooler inside the hut, but it was better than nothing. The place had become what he would call (still rather reluctantly) a home. It was small, hardly meant for three people, but they made do. The focus was clearly on providing for Luke. Obi-Wan’s personal vow against materialism and Anakin’s generalized apathy meant they didn’t care for collecting their own possessions, so most of what filled the place was things for the growing child. 

His cot - still a crib of course - was the nicest they could manage, and the only reason they didn’t suffer through just eating ration packs was because it would have been unsuitable for Luke. It was after around one month of living there Anakin pointed out that they’d have to buy stuff for him. 

“We  _ have _ stuff for him, you were there when we found clothes-“

Anakin had just rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan was still not even in the mindset of caring for a child and despite a tension that still peppered every conversation and glance, he smiled. 

“I mean toys, Obi-Wan.”

“Oh.” The former Jedi frowned, because when Anakin said it, it was so obvious. 

“Unless you planned on letting him keep pulling at your beard for entertainment.”

Obi-Wan raised a hand to his face, reminded by how Luke’s insistent hands always found his way there and tugged. “No,” he stated grimly, like they were discussing battle tactics. “I didn’t plan on that at all. 

“Alright. Then keep an eye out next you’re in town.”

Other than trips to Anchorhead, because he was still the only one to know a thing about machine repair, Anakin didn’t leave. It was an assertion of Obi-Wan’s that he was the less suspicious and recognizable of the two. Anakin’s stature would always commanded attention, even if he didn’t have a preference for dark clothing and brooding looks. Granted, he couldn’t wear his preferred black tunics on Tatooine so he was back in light linens, to his displeasure. But he’d always had a way of standing that drew the eye, with his golden hair and rakish smile, bright eyes and a face marred only by a scar that some would easily say made him look all the more captivating. It was certainly not a face that would go unnoticed in the desert backwater of Tatooine. Obi-Wan considered his appearance far more homely. Out of his Jedi tunics he looked much the same as every other moisture farmer and human on the planet. Anakin tried to argue that wasn’t true, but when Obi-Wan asked for a reason why, he fell silent. Besides, if Obi-Wan ever did get a wary look he could mist it over with a wave of his hand and suddenly all anyone remembered was having a good but uneventful journey into town. 

And so after his next ride into town, he’d come back rather sheepishly with any toy and trinket he could find, and the excuse ready on his lips that “I didn’t know what he’d like.” There weren’t babies in the Jedi Temple, so saying he was out of his element was an understatement. It was an event he mostly remembered because he felt ridiculous for being out of his depth but Anakin had looked at him in this very open manner- there was something in his eyes that Obi-Wan could not place but it was a full feeling and oh how he’d wished for their bond again. 

In the end, it seemed to not really matter. Just about anything made Luke happy and nothing was free from his reign of terror: he loved throwing things and watching them hit the ground. Not with any real menace, of course, and when it had clearly become a habit all Obi-Wan’s exasperated looks were met with Anakin’s excuse “He’s just curious!”

Luke could sit up unassisted, which was quite helpful in plopping him down on counters and table tops so Obi-Wan could prepare his meals. At some point while he was retrieving a pitcher of blue milk, and Luke was babbling away with nonsense noises, Anakin had come in. Not in entirely though; he leaned in their doorway, skin still shining with faint sweat and wiping mech grease from his hands. 

“I think he likes you more.”

Obi-Wan looked up. In front of him, Luke was sucking down milk, and made a half upset noise when the drink was pulled away from him. 

“I think if that were true, then he wouldn’t spend so much time tormenting my facial hair.” 

To which Anakin only rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan, not for the first time, wished their bond was still there, so he could know what Anakin was thinking. Nowadays, his face was often so blank. Once, he didn’t even need the Force to know his feelings, and now all of that was gone. 

He couldn’t deny that sometimes Luke seemed more receptive to him than his actual father, but he didn’t consider that to really be indicative of anything. At most, it was because Anakin had to spend more time fixing all the things they relied on and knew not a thing about taking care of himself or another living creature. Droids and machinery were where he excelled. Anakin was his father, and that was a bond that couldn’t be broken or beaten out by anything. Obi-Wan wasn’t really sure what that made him, and thinking about it gave him this unsettled sort of feeling, so he avoided it. 

“Here, you take him then-“

“ _ No _ he won’t eat if  _ I _ try to feed him- Great-” Anakin unhappily held Luke, who was reaching for the drink still in Obi-Wan’s hand. “If he starves, I’ll never forgive you.”

Now it was Obi-Wan’s turn to roll his eyes. They had a low makeshift sitting area - clearly set up, like most things, entirely for Luke’s benefit - and there they all sat, so Anakin could care for his own child and Obi-Wan could both watch and rub his temples. Near the beginning of all this, he’d had the humorless thought that maybe without all the war and horrible mixup of Jedi and politics, he’d have some peace of mind and stop getting headaches near constantly. It seemed that wasn’t so. 

“You know you-“

“If you were open-“

They spoke at the same time, cut themselves off at the same time, and then sat in a beat of silence. Then Anakin smiled in an embarrassed way that Obi-Wan was familiar with. It was how he used to look when he talked about Padme, or was caught doing something he didn’t regret but was borderline breaking  _ some  _ rule. It was almost refreshing, nostalgic in a way, to see him look so quickly bashful- “You go ahead.”

Obi-Wan shook his head slightly and waved a hand, “No please, you first.” There was a hint of a smile hidden behind both his beard and hand. But there was an unmissable kindness in his eyes. Anakin met it with mild exasperation before finishing his thought. 

“I was only going to say, you wouldn’t get so many headaches if you stopped frowning all the time.”

Obi-Wan huffed, “I don’t see what  _ that _ has to do with anything.”

Anakin knew that affronted tone and had to keep from really smiling. It’s exactly how his former Master had sounded when confronted with proof of romantic relationships - Satine, obviously - that most certainly  _ had not _ happened. “You always have that worry - yeah! Right there! Between your eyebrows, that line, when you frown. And you frown a lot.”

Obi-Wan had a dismissive “I do not” on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t voice it. He didn’t because now that Anakin pointed it out he could of course feel that furrowed line of tension on his forehead. He made a very small attempt to relax that worry which was in no way him admitting Anakin was right. “Alright,” Anakin bounced Luke in his lap, “what was it you were going to say then?” He looked too pleased, like he knew Obi-Wan was warring with himself to not let him win. 

“If you were open to it,” he began again, leveling Anakin with a mild look, “we could train together.”

He thought it was a great proposal, but Anakin looked dubious and said “I don’t think just having you with me is going to make me able to meditate.” There was a deeper pain behind those words for both of them. Anakin, who famously hated meditation, would often stick it out if the two of them went through it together. Of course Obi-Wan understood that with his connection to the Force as strained as it now was, even that wouldn’t help- but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to mourn the idea of it. 

“I’m not talking about meditation.”

“You mean-“

“Not with sabers, but I’m sure we could find something to make do.”

Not with sabers because that was something they could not do. It was another question of trust. The weapon was their life, but Obi-Wan had not returned it from when he picked it up on Mustafar, and Anakin had not asked for it. Obi-Wan still had his with him at all times, but managed to clip it more discreetly. In their months there, he’d had no reason to use it, and it was one of the many things that went unmentioned. 

But he meant the offer sincerely and he could see Anakin processing that, something akin to hope flashing across his face. 

———

“Just basic forms?”

Anakin swung a durasteel rod. They’d found two with old abandoned parts meant for their home and its original purposes. What those were didn’t matter now, as both wielded them like staffs. 

Obi-Wan shrugged, a loose roll of his shoulders, both a reply and a way of warming up. “I’ll take your lead on this.” Anakin was hopping between his feet and cast a glance behind his opponent. “He’ll be fine.” 

Luke again sat in the shade. The suns were lower in the sky, cooling the air into something tolerable. The child was giggling happily and Obi-Wan had already extended his awareness to him. He was in Anakin's line of sight, and connected so deeply to Obi-Wan that it was no different than Luke being held by him. 

Either genuinely assured by Obi-Wan’s words or caught up in his eagerness to spar, Anakin nodded. He shifted into a ready stance which Obi-Wan mirrored. They already looked more aggressive and more defensive respectively. 

But it was Obi-Wan who made the first move and suddenly it was unclear who this was all for. Was it a way to help train Anakin again, or a way for Obi-Wan to work out his own tension, his own confusions and anger that he could not pass into the Force? Surprised but not caught off guard, Anakin met his first twirling blow perfectly. 

And then there they were: a dance of their two bodies and makeshift weapons, so in sync it was clear they knew each other more intimately than anyone else. They were like extensions of the same body, the same being, even without Anakin’s connection to the Force to unite them, there was something inseparable there. Identical- a single living thing. They gave and took ground equally. It looked more like a stage production than a fight, so choreographed, neither one of them getting an advantage. They carried on, dancing, kicking up sand and dirt, sweating under binary suns - it was unclear whether those two astronomical bodies were more in unison than the men they lit aflame. They burned with a similar heat, and moved with the same powerful grace that they might as well have been stars, cold and hot at the same time and absolutely dazzling. 

If they were really training, there could be no end to this. They were so perfectly aligned that it always took a surprise to tilt the scales enough for one of them to give. But that was the case in the Jedi Temple, when Anakin had the Force and the galaxy, though not at Peace, was nearer to Balanced. However, Anakin had a natural disadvantage. He’d lost himself. Everything that had fueled him was gone. Still, he fought hard until, inevitably, he began to slip. 

It might have been better if he’d noticed before Obi-Wan’s blow struck. It doubled the shock- not had he noticed the strike but now there was no missing the pain in his thigh, “Oh for f-“ he bit off his remark. 

“Would you like to stop?” Of course Obi-Wan would ask that, his voice so cool and uninvolved. Always the aloof Jedi. 

“No.” Anakin moved back into a ready stance and felt a curling feeling in his gut. It was probably the most of  _ anything _ that he’d felt in a long time. A new fire, or maybe the same one just rekindled. He swung the not-really-a-staff high overhead and cast it in a shattering blow downwards, making Obi-Wan quickly move into the defensive. And there it was, exactly as he wanted. 

Anakin became relentless, each blow exhibiting a new power, a swing that didn’t hold back, and as Obi-Wan watched, he saw a look come over Anakin’s face that made some feeling curl in his gut as well. 

Obi-Wan gave ground, no longer willing to strike him, needing only to defend. It unnerved him that this was Anakin raw, not even aided by the Force, and that the anger he saw in him could only be his. They were far removed from the manipulations of the Sith, so this was Anakin as he truly was. 

Just as Anakin had not seen the blow from Obi-Wan coming, neither did he see the effects of his own actions until it was too late. His hit landed with a substantial, resounding snap. 

And then they were both dropping the not-weapons but it was too late because Anakin had already hit him, really and truly hit him. Obi-Wan’s first blow was no different than the type they’d usually trade in sparring- a little thing that would bruise and leave no real damage. This mark though was real and cruel. 

The fire in Anakin extinguished in a second. “Obi-Wan, I-“

The older held up a hand, face lined harshly with pain and something else. Yet still, he gritted out “It’s alright.” He couldn’t even look at Anakin, ducked over in pain and a hand covering where he’d been struck. 

Anakin faltered, “What- No. No! It’s not alright. You’re hurt,  _ I  _ hurt you-“

“It’s  _ alright _ -“

“It  _ isn’t _ . You can’t just say that! You’re bleeding, you can’t just say it’s fine because you’re too afraid to admit that I messed up! You can’t pretend I didn’t hurt you-“

Obi-Wan snapped. A tension that had been drawn very thin, getting pulled tighter with each passing day, which he’d tried to ignore and pacify through meditation and things that in the end only made him feel worse. It all broke- shattered apart in an instant. The look on his face held such a dark fury that Anakin had never seen, even his moments of worst disappointment and recklessness. 

“ _ What _ Anakin? What do you want me to say, to _do_? Would you like me to fight back?” Obi-Wan let go of his injury, straightening as adrenaline and anger washed over everything else. In a quick moment he called the staff back into his hand with an uncharacteristic use of the Force. It was frivolous and powerful and aggressive. “You always keep  _ pushing _ \- Haven’t you done enough?! You want me to hit you back, to strike you down-“

Anakin had drawn forward when he wanted to go to Obi-Wan’s side but now he stumbled back. Obi-Wan advanced in two strides, wielding the equipment piece again like a weapon. Now it was Anakin’s turn to feel real fear. Obi-Wan spun what could easily be a fatal blow, and Anakin thought  _ and now he’ll kill me. For everything I’ve done and lost, now Obi-Wan will kill me _ and then the Jedi struck. 

The rod lodged straight into the ground between them with a too-perfect precision and grace. Obi-Wan’s breath was ragged and Anakin’s eyes were wide. It stayed in place when Obi-Wan’s hand dropped. His gaze did not. His eyes swam with a storm of feeling when he admitted, softly, into the hot, dry air between them, “but that is the one thing I cannot do.”


	4. Chapter 4

What tormented Anakin was not the way Obi-Wan looked at him, or the way he’d held that staff with such sure power even while his side bled, but it was that Anakin could not bring himself to blame him. If Obi-Wan had indeed hit him back, it would have wiped all the fight and anger out of him. He could not have cared,  _ could not  _ have blamed him. He only would have been able to lay dying on the sand that saw his birth and say Obi-Wan was right to do this. 

But Obi-Wan had stuck the rod straight into the ground. No droid could have done it more precisely, such a clean and mechanized protrusion. Maybe the Force had let him do it so cleanly, or maybe it was all naturally Obi-Wan. 

Anakin was struck too, with something he could not name when he watched Obi-Wan turn around, abandoning him to go back inside, and taking Luke with him. Taking that time to lift up and soothe the child upset by some unknown thing even while he was hurt and bleeding. It left Anakin feeling only stunned, ridiculous. What happened to being the Chosen One, and more than that to being the impressive Hero with No Fear- names which spoke of his ability to flawlessly pull off missions. What happened to the boy who had been the only human to ever survive a pod race, let alone  _ win  _ one?

When he entered their abode, Luke was calmed down and Obi-Wan was bandaging himself with bacta and gauze. It seemed a clumsy, awkward task, and awarded Anakin a glimpse at the damage he’d done. Two discarded cloths were blotted with blood, and he could see Obi-Wan’s fingers lightly smeared with red. Anakin had hit him in his side, just below his ribs. He could only assume there was a gash under those patches, and above it was visible bruising. 

“The bleeding is not deep.”

He supposed Obi-Wan had sensed him, a sensation he hadn’t forgotten about and missed, but didn’t like not being able to do it himself. It was like relearning to swim, or breath. The Force was natural and a part of him, and without it he could live, but had to relearn every instinctual thing. 

“Obi-Wan, I-“

“I’m putting Luke to bed.”

Anakin glanced out through their port, as though they hadn’t just been outside. It was late, and Luke didn’t look too happy. Usually Anakin put him to bed- but also Obi-Wan wasn't usually bleeding and usually Anakin was the one to run from confrontational conversations but then again nothing was normal anymore. 

Anakin nodded, not knowing if Obi-Wan even saw, and then he was alone again. 

Obi-Wan did not see him again for the night. He sat in the cool evening air of Tatooine, felt the desert grow even colder until the suns had both set and the sky was instead lit by stars. Stars he had once travelled, all those places he had been, and planets he had known. He cast his eyes on that great cosmos and mourned a life he would not get back, and all of those he’d lost. He couldn’t even know them by name. He could only believe all the other Jedi were dead, but even that certainty was something he was not awarded. 

The pain in his side was near unbearable, but Obi-Wan reminded himself he’d had worse. He’d been a Jedi knight afterall, a Council Master and a High General during the Clone Wars. Yes, he’d suffered worse. 

He cast it into the Force, relaxed his position, and meditated. 

He did not try to contact those he’d lost, but instead just reached out. He became the stillness of the sands and the memories of life the planet once held. He became the staff he’d struck into the ground and Tatooine’s natural inhabitants milling about in the Wastes. The night was clear and calm, and so was Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

_ I thought I told you not to blame yourself.  _

Obi-Wan’s posture stiffened, which only sent another wave of sharp pain through him. 

“Master-“

_ Yes, my old Padawan- _

“But I don’t understand.”

_ Even if I am not physically there it’s still rude to interrupt, Obi-Wan.  _

It wasn’t exactly that Obi-Wan  _ doubted _ what he’d heard months before. Yoda had told him, and he knew as sure as anything what he’d heard- but hearing it again. Relief filled him, the Force glowed and sang when he heard old Qui-Gon Jinn say his name again. 

“Of course, Master. It’s very good to hear from you again.”

There was some feeling like reassurance or approval, like the essence of Qui-Gon was nodding in agreement. 

_ You’ve become quite the Jedi Master, my friend _ . Obi-Wan wanted to argue, but swallowed that rebellious urge. He had failed as both Jedi and Master.  _ And I see Anakin has finally hit you. Good, maybe you’ll both stop being so foolish now.  _

“Wait,  _ what _ ?-“

_ Manners, young one. _ How was it a  _ good _ thing that Anakin had done this? Obi-Wan wanted to glare at the old maverick Jedi, who was always saying things that made no sense. And so Qui-Gon continued.  _ This isn’t a social call, my friend. Though I am very glad to speak with you again. I have spoken with others, and the galaxy is not as destroyed as you have let yourself think. You must have patience.  _

So Qui-Gon had come to him last? This old feeling of rejection rose up, one Obi-Wan hadn’t felt since his Padawan days, when he’d wanted to leave the Order and when his Master was so ready to cast him aside to take on a new Padawan. Old feelings he’d long told himself he’d gotten over, but apparently he had not. 

_ I am proud of you Obi-Wan. Anakin still needs you. You are a much better Master for him than I ever would have been.  _

“That’s not true.” He could not say whether it was faith or loyalty that his argument was rooted in. Qui-Gon had been a phenomenal Master, easily unconventional, but so often exactly what Obi-Wan needed. Yes he’d had the odd habit of gambling, misusing the Force, and befriending the most irritating of life forms, but as both a Jedi and a man, he was the perfect model. 

_ No, Obi-Wan. Anakin needed someone to guide him in the Force because his energy and power left unchecked would have been dangerous to him and to others.  _ This, Obi-Wan and other Jedi had always known. If Anakin had been denied acceptance into the Order, he would have been like Asajj Ventress. A powerful Force user abandoned by the Light. Master Yoda had assented to this many times, insisting that training Anakin took delicate precedence over other duties.  _ But that does not mean he could have learned under any Master. More than anything, Obi-Wan, he needed a friend. You have always been to him something I could not have been.  _

The words settled deep into Obi-Wan’s mind, into his psyche. The pain in his side throbbed. A friend. But he had failed Anakin as that. 

_ Your chance to train him is not over. Hope is not lost _ . 

Obi-Wan felt a dimming feeling, like a weight resettling on his shoulders and he knew what it meant even before he spoke “Master?”

But of course there was no one there. 

———

Obi-Wan stood in what he supposed was their kitchen, if they could even claim to have such a thing. He stood at their counter, looking out the port. It was very early, the sky a mix of blue and gold that spoke of rising suns and the promise of a clear, hot day. But this was Tatooine, so that was a given. 

He was often up early, since old habits of rising with the sun and barely sleeping anyway die hard. He had spent the night communing with the Force, seeking Peace, and ignoring Pain. And now the suns were warming their planet and he wanted to be inside before he prickled with sweat and heat. He assumed he was the only one up, because he so often was. But he felt Anakin before he heard him. His presence was as astounding as a rock’s, but it was enough for Obi-Wan to know he was there, even without looking. 

“Did I wake you?”

“I always wake up early. Meditation and such.”

“Sounds horrible.” Anakin‘s voice was dry, but not humorless. 

“Why are you up anyways?”

“Had to check the evaporator again. Sometimes they have a way of kriffing up even after a day in use.” 

“Sounds horrible.” Obi-Wan echoed. Needing something to occupy his hands, he reached for a dish, not thinking until pain lanced through him. He winced. 

He could not deny the hurt in his side and dropped his arm. He turned away from the counter, wanting to be alone again, spending all this time in meditation so his thoughts and feelings were not his own but a part of a great cosmic plan. He did not want to be burdened with individual experiences. So far he considered it mutually disappointing- he had failed the galaxy, and the Force would not grant him the peace he was promised. But when Obi-Wan turned back, it was into Anakin’s grasp. The strange feeling of a hand on either side of him. “Anakin-“

“Please, just let me.” And with how close they stood, how hands he knew held such strength danced lightly along the hem of his tunics, and how he could smell the sand and sun and sweat that defined who Anakin was- Obi-Wan knew he would say yes to anything in that moment. It was dangerous but he’d give up everything for him. 

All the peace of mind he’d spent the night seeking was wiped away by the desire to say  _ yes  _ and agree to whatever, so long as Anakin was the one asking. 

And Anakin was so careful, with the metallic right hand ghosting along his clothes and pulling light enough to make sure durasteel fingers never touched his skin. It was the other hand of the warm flesh and blood he was so familiar with that grazed across his chest, guiding open air to his shoulder, to his arm, 

Anakin stopped when the robe was halfway off, trapping his arm at the elbow and exposing the line of his body from shoulder to hip. Somehow it felt more intimate than if his shirt was completely off. This was like a tease of modesty, or like he was a thing for Anakin to unravel. 

Obi-Wan could feel the warm breath on his skin, on his neck and the open collar. He wanted to look up and see his eyes- were they staring at the wound or would he find that stormy gaze meeting him perfectly? He could only look fixedly at the chest in front of him, the curve of neck. He could watch the trail of sweat through a thin layer of sand, some dirt. He felt he could stare at it for hours, watch each particle settle and be washed away from golden skin, the steady pulse of his heart visible. 

The bacta patch had been pulled away from yesterday’s wound. The gash in his side had knit itself back together, leaving a line of subtly raised pink tissue. The area above it was still sickly bruised. Obi-Wan figured that the discoloration would spread and seep for a week or two before it began to yellow and eventually fade. Right now it was a wash of purple-blue skin, dotted with pin pricks of red. His muscle was knotted in pain and tension. Anakin’s voice was soft and low, a melting, familiar tone that he could sink into, “Does it still hurt?”

Despite himself, despite this moment that he was drinking up with every minute detail, Obi-Wan answered honestly. ”Yes.” There was a swipe of a warm thumb across the knotted muscle. 

He had to look up, had to see Anakin’s face- but he wasn’t looking at him. Anakin was reaching for their med kit. It meant Obi-Wan’s eyes could travel up the same cords of his neck he’d already been staring at, across a tensely set jaw, the frown on his lips and the displeased furrow of his brow. Working had given his face a sheen that was undeniably beautiful in the golden morning light, even with such a severe visage. He did not look away, but Anakin did not look at him while redressing the ghastly sight with fresh bandages. 

They stood so close. Obi-Wan’s back was against the counter and his legs were nearly bracketing Anakin, whose hands held so tenderly and his gaze was so concerned. Obi-Wan had to wonder how far that concern mixed with guilt- Was this a selfless or selfish concern? 

“And what about your leg? Is it still bruised?“

“It doesn’t matter.”

He frowned, and disagreed entirely. Was this a way of making himself suffer as punishment for what he’d done to him, or did it really not hurt anymore? It was misguided selflessness. 

“I’m so sorry.” Anakin’s voice was watery, his eyes were low and he knew how he looked when he was fighting an outburst of emotions, trying not to cry. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.” Anakin was trying to pull back, like he was disgusted with himself, angry, but Obi-Wan held him in place with both hands on his arms. 

“I was the one who recommended we practice, and I struck the first blow. It’s no matter anyways; the pain will fade, and it will be as though nothing ever happened.”

“No I mean that, I hurt you-“

Oh. 

This wasn’t about his arm. Or at least not about  _ just _ his arm. It was about everything else. 

He tried to push through some reassurance in the force. Old habit. Anakin’s signature wasn’t there to receive him. Which meant he had to actually use his words and despite being the famed Negotiator, that wasn’t something he enjoyed doing. 

“Anakin, we could spend a very long time going through each and every way we’ve ever wronged one another.” There was certainly no shortage of incidents to reference. “I would rather we try to move on, yes?”

Anakin finally looked at him, the conflict clear on his face. Something like pain, but also sympathy, swam in his eyes, tears Obi-Wan wanted to wipe away before they’d even been shed. “I can’t, Ma-“ he swallowed his words and Obi-Wan waited patiently for him to continue. It would pain them both too much to hear that one word finished. Anakin felt he had abused it by so quickly calling another by that title, and Obi-Wan felt he did not deserve it in the first place. 

Anakin began again, “I can’t move on. Not because of the Force, but because I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I have left.”

This was not something Obi-Wan could answer. Truly, it was not something anyone could answer. And that was the heart of the issue. Who was Anakin Skywalker at the end of it all? To Sidious, he had always been Vader, the potential of him brought to fruition. To Padme, he had been her perfect husband, destined to be a wonderful Jedi. To Qui-Gon Jinn he was the Chosen One. To Darkness he was Power and to Light he was Hope. And to the Force as a whole he was more than Balance and Prophecy but he was a mess of both Destined and Chosen Good, from his unconventional birth guaranteed for something grand and only he could decide what that would be. 

But to Obi-Wan he had always been and always would be just one thing: himself. Anakin Skywalker. He felt that what Anakin had left was his potential in the Force, still lingering and shimmering deep within him. He had his son, and their life on Tatooine, even if it hardly was a life compared to all the dreams the man had once held. He had the memories of all those they had lost and would honor. Anakin had himself, an energy that needed to be brought back, bursting into being because Obi-Wan did not know what he would do without it. 

So it was Obi-Wan’s turn to be gentle, and for his eyes to reflect hope and sympathy and something so much more than they both refused to name. He did not voice those feelings, and he did not voice all the other ones he could have. He  _ wanted _ to, he really did, but he felt that would not be what Anakin needed. Obi-Wan  _ wanted _ to assure him that Anakin Skywalker was, and always would be, the greatest man he ever knew, that he would always love him, and that together they could find a happy life for him again, and all such other things. 

Instead, with still the greatest care in his voice, Obi-Wan said “Come. We have work to do.”

———

The three of them were outside, basking together in Tatooine’s midday suns. They were surrounded by drapes of light linens, strung up on a line between their home and the shed they used for storage and keeping the speeder. Almost every piece of cloth they owned was hung up around them, bedsheets, clothing, all of it washed conveniently together. They could not spare the water to do this frequently, so it was their first day of a real proper cleaning and Obi-Wan was very glad of it. He pinned up a garment that, now clean, would go unused. His Jedi attire. Now a relic, like the Order. A myth that did not find them here in the Outer Rim.

Anakin sat with Luke in his lap. Obi-Wan watched them, warmed not just by the suns but also by a content amusement. “I don’t understand why he’ll pull  _ my _ beard but not  _ your _ hair.”

“Because he loves me more.” Anakin lifted his son up, and the child let out a squeal of giggling delight. “Isn’t that right? I think he said yes.” Anakin was squinting up at Obi-Wan who just shook his head. 

“Anakin, he can’t talk.”

“No, listen, that was  _ almost _ a word.” Luke was grinning, pointing at Obi-Wan and making absolute nonsense noises. 

“Oh yes, I hear it now. It certainly wasn’t a word in Basic. Have you taught him Wookie, or Huttese?” He had an eyebrow delicately raised, trying to stifle a smile as Anakin nodded, just as seriously. 

“Yes, I think the next generation should abandon Basic all together. He’ll only be speaking Wookie.”

“How delightful.”

Hanging up the last bedsheet, Obi-Wan turned his gaze out to the horizon. The dunes were calm and still, but he had this feeling in the pit of his stomach that this even weather wouldn’t hold. There had been a few small sandstorms since they’d been there, nothing too extreme, and Obi-Wan felt there was one working itself into excitement and chaos out in the beyond. He hoped that wasn’t true because he’d just pinned up their laundry and it would have been a shame to waste all that time. 

“Should he be talking by now?” Anakin’s voice pulled him back. “I mean, not real words yet…”

“I expect he’s just fine, but how would I know? Anyways,  _ you’re  _ the father here.” His voice carried a little exasperation, but it was more amused than critical. Really, what did either one of them know? They’d never cared for a child, and for obvious reasons Ahsoka did  _ not _ count towards their experience. She was much older and saved them just about as often as they did her. 

Anakin frowned, and Obi-Wan feared he’d overstepped by pointing out how utterly unqualified they were. He did  _ really  _ believe that Luke was fine. He was always happy, unless he was cranky with hunger or tiredness, but that had to be normal. Obi-Wan wasn’t struck by a single thing out of the ordinary. But there Anakin was frowning not like he was upset but like he’d said something  _ insulting _ . 

“Anakin,” He began with that hesitant, reproachful tone that was so common. The slight lilt of his Coruscanti accent that was out of place on Tatooine, but that Anakin could imitate perfectly when he was in the mood too. Near the end of his Padawan-ship, he’d often been in that mood. 

“Nothing‘s wrong,” the younger man stated and for a moment it was like their bond was there, and Anakin had known all the thoughts and worries that passed through his head. But Anakin had that look like he couldn’t quite organize his thoughts and Obi-Wan was prepared to patiently listen as his friend sorted out the mess in his head. “It’s just that- Well,  _ you _ care for Luke too.” A pause, Obi-Wan nodded and Anakin seemed reassured that this obvious fact landed well. “And I know that  _ I _ ’m his father, but that doesn’t mean  _ you’re _ not important to him-”

Obi-Wan felt entirely lost, while Anakin kept talking. He was still listening of course, patiently and all that and Anakin wouldn’t quite look at him. He wasn’t sure if the flush on his face was from heat or embarrassment. “So it’s just that, if you wanted to be something more- well not  _ be  _ something because it wouldn’t change anything-“ Anakin cut himself off, face aflame and looking mortified. He’d kriffed that up quite nicely, he had to admit. 

And that’s when it sort of clicked in Obi-Wan’s head.  _ Oh _ . Then Obi-Wan was kneeling down in the sand, level with Anakin and Luke grasping for his hand, which he kindly allowed. The three of them together, a connected chain. He almost let himself think of them as a family but he still wouldn’t allow himself that. 

“When I say he’s  _ your _ son, I’m not trying to say that I don’t care for him too,” Obi-Wan’s calm, level voice was ever the opposite of Anakin’s jumbled mess of words. “If anything, that’s exactly why I  _ do _ care. I won’t-“ He wouldn’t let anything happen to Luke, or to Anakin, but could he admit that? Could he admit that glaringly obvious attachment, or did it even really matter anymore? He was still so strung up on thinking of himself as a Jedi, even with the Order gone-

But Qui-Gon has said there was hope. Qui-Gon has also said it was a good thing Anakin hit him so of course he didn’t know what  _ exactly _ what any of that meant. But maybe now  _ wasn’t  _ the time to abandon the Code and all those rules, as he once told himself it might have been. Not that he’d ever stuck well to that whole “no attachment” bit even while the Order was thriving. But if there was even an echo of the Order still out there, then he had to remain the Jedi Master he was meant to be. It meant he could not say those words to Anakin. He could not give into what he could not let go. 

Obi-Wan had a worn smile on his face. Anakin knew it well. It was the look that spoke of infinite sadness. “He is your son. I would be honored by any name he wants to call me.” 

And that settled it. Both of them seemed content with that resolution though it was the most roundabout and disconnected way they could have possibly reached it. If Anakin were someone capable of organizing anything, at the very least his own thoughts, then he would have said, straightforward “You're his father too.” And if Obi-Wan weren’t still refusing to admit to attachment then he would have replied “I would be honored to be Luke’s father.” But no. Despite the skill with words and emotional intelligence they were both  _ supposed _ to have, they stunted and blundered their way through. So instead of becoming a family in that moment they were still Anakin Skywalker, his son, and oh yeah, Obi-Wan Kenobi who lives with them. And that would have to do. 

———

“I’d like to try and meditate again.”

Obi-Wan was hurriedly taking down every bit of laundry that he’d strung up hours before, and Anakin was supposed to be helping him. Really, Anakin should have been the  _ only _ one working given the fantastic pain in Obi-Wan’s side, but the old Jedi wanted things to actually be done properly. He’d been right with that instinct about a storm. Anakin remembered the signs well enough that they still had some time, but not so much that Obi-Wan wanted to entertain this conversation right now. “Yes, well- No you have to unpin it or you’ll tear the sheet!” He cut Anakin a glare but he was rolling his eyes and following orders and taking things down much too slowly for Obi-Wan’s taste. “We’ll have plenty of time once the storm hits. Now take that basket back inside.”

The way his voice bit out commands was exactly like it had been during the war and every stressful mission they’d shared, it made Anakin almost offer a nostalgic smile. There was a glimmer of hope in him that this time he’d be able to connect with the Force, and the knowledge that at least some things were out in the open between them. Just no more sparring for a while and everything would be alright. 

Obi-Wan was less hopeful, as he made sure their shed was locked tight and everything was secure. The horizon which had been so clean and calm hours before was now marred with a haze of sand. The sky had darkened to an unpromising and dirty grey. Tatooine’s two suns were hidden behind clouds, but they were clouds of whisping, thunderous sand. He hated moments like this, where he was reminded how alone they were out in the Wastes. If anything happened, no one would even know. 

Which, as usual, was entirely untrue. Obi-Wan came to these conclusions unknowing of how dedicated the Force was to their eventual, inevitable wellbeing. They were not alone, and never would be, and if either of them were lost it would be a feeling reverberated in the cosmos with only the most tremendous mourning. 

“Are those windows secure?”

Anakin rolled his eyes. He had far more experience with everything about Tatooine and here was Obi-Wan, hurling commands and doubts. “Yes-“

“And did you put those boards up, I don’t want any sand getting in-“

“Of course I did. And you know some sand is going to get in anyways.” Because it always, inevitably did. 

And maybe Obi-Wan finally realized they were both capable individuals, because his shoulders relaxed and he looked at Anakin with a little more sympathy. It said  _ yes, of course, you’re right _ . And maybe even  _ I trust you _ . 

He answered the next question before Obi-Wan even asked it, “Luke is still napping. Absolutely sound asleep.”

If he wanted to, Obi-Wan could have reached out and made sure that it was true. And maybe, if they hadn’t been there for months, he would have. But he didn’t, and only nodded, trusting Anakin entirely. 

The interior was dim, all the usual light from outside, from the suns reflecting on the sand and sky and making everything always far too bright, was gone. Every port was closed and boarded to keep the sands and gales of wind out, but it also took away all the natural light usually in abundance. The glow lamps were a poor substitute and made Obi-Wan uneasy. Their shroud of gloomy light didn’t do much to reassure him. 

“I’ve never seen you so eager to meditate before.” Obi-Wan gave Anakin an appraising look. For all his nervousness about the weather, Anakin was near bouncing with an anxious excitement absolutely not suited to a peaceful, meditative connection with the Force. 

They settled on floor mats, facing one another with crossed legs. Obi-Wan actually looked calm, back straight and eyes shut as his breathing deepened. Anakin was  _ trying _ to be as calm and stationary. After a beat of staying like that, he rather impatiently quipped “Maybe the Chancellor took away my ability to meditate.”

Obi-Wan peaked one eye open, “Very funny, Anakin, but I don’t remember you being all that great at it  _ before _ you swore your allegiance to a Sith.”

There was a pause, where Anakin frowned more severely. Obi-Wan didn’t feel bad for his honesty, but then, still surprising him, Anakin said “I wanted to kill him, you know.”

“ _ What _ ?” His voice was bit out, completely incredulous, like Anakin had admitted to having a third arm. Both eyes open now, and that familiar furrow between his brows. 

“Palpatine- Sidious-“ he paused, looking every bit as unsure of how to refer to his former friend, the Chancellor turned Emperor, his brief Sith Master. “I planned to kill him. I wanted him alive so I could learn to conquer death and save Padme, and then kill him after. I knew he wanted me as his pawn. I thought I could still get what I wanted out of him.”

“Oh Anakin,” something about the way he said it was so like Padme, when on that volcanic planet she had cried out he was breaking her heart. It made the small words strike deeper, and he admitted what he had said to her before even then:

“We could have won the war, if I’d only listened- if I’d been the Jedi I should have been.”

“No.” It had been a long time since he’d heard Obi-Wan sound so certain. “By fighting at all, the Jedi already lost. Sidious made sure of that from the very beginning. Before we’d even found you here, he’d already crafted a war that he alone could win.”

He’d already ordered the clones, he’d already taken Maul as an apprentice, he’d already manipulated the Force to declare Anakin his Chosen One. 

This was a galaxy that had little room for any old Jedi philosophy, since that had already so clearly failed, but Obi-Wan allowed them this one: “We cannot focus on the past. We know what has happened. The time for blame, for what could have been, is gone. We must focus on now.” He could hear the echo of his former Master always reminding him of that.  _ Stop trying to look ahead and look at what’s right in front of you! _ But now, if Obi-Wan was ever prone to hypocritically not listen to his own advice, it was also to look back. He had said, to Master Yoda, when they knew Anakin fell, that he should have died. That he should have been shot on Geonosis, and since even that would have been too late, that he should have been killed by Maul on Naboo. At the end of things, he would always view himself as the why: why had Anakin Fallen? Because Obi-Wan had failed him.

“Clear your mind,” Obi-Wan instructed, maybe to himself as much as to Anakin. “Even if you cannot feel it, the Force is there.” Obi-Wan felt himself already slip into that high consciousness. The raging sands outside their home, the stillness inside of it, his breathing matched with Anakin’s, Luke sleeping a room away, all of it became one. The push and pull of the Force, tidal waves of sensations of everything, both living and not. He could not imagine being deprived of this. Something within him still sang even with the nearness to Anakin, the echo of a signature that was not really there anymore, but the memories of the deeper connection that once was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I don’t know much about meditation but I’m pretty sure this isn’t how you’re supposed to do it.  
> Oh and you know in Pokémon when there’s a weather effect or something and in the middle of battle it’s like “Strong winds buffeted you” or whatever it says? That’s how I felt talking about this sand storm

For the first time in his whole life, Anakin’s head wasn’t filled with the constant noise of the Force. He no longer felt the explosive reverberations of everything he came in contact with. This peace wasn’t the same as what others found through the Force, but it was as near to it as he’d ever been before. It left Anakin with some desperate desire to do better, to  _ be  _ better. He knew he still wanted the Force back, but every small failure was a sign of a greater one. If he could not connect with the Force now, in meditation with Obi-Wan, then when would he ever be able to? He didn’t necessarily fear losing that connection forever, but he mourned the choice. Anakin mourned  _ choosing _ to be good and following the Light of his own accord, and not just because the Force had taken all the power from him. Obi-Wan’s relentless hope in him filled him with a desire to  _ choose _ to be good and make up for what he’d done. Without the Force, he’d never be able to properly do that. 

That change was morphed into this great, grand new thing, knowing that this was a new phase of his life. More than anything he didn’t want to be alone for it- because even when he’d never been alone in his life he’d  _ felt  _ like he was and now all his passion was poured into making sure that he wasn’t. He had to be just as active in reaching out. It’s why he wanted to meditate in the first place, not because he suddenly had Obi-Wan’s misplaced faith that he’d get everything back, but because he’d buy into the belief if it meant they could share what they’d lost- what he had sacrificed and burned.

But Anakin was not able to connect with the Force. 

Every time he thought he had something, he was just as easily able to dismiss it as an effect of the winds, rising in intensity and beating at their boarded home. And the more he felt like he’d had it, then realized he hadn’t, the more he noticed the irritation of sand under his shirt and itching at his neck, the more he grew angry. And it was even worse that he didn’t even have to look at him to know Obi-Wan was sitting there patiently, either watching him or able to feel him in his strong-as-ever Force connection. 

He was tired of seeing Obi-Wan always so calm and put together. He’d gotten that glimpse of his former Master angry and it was terrifying but exhilarating and he wanted more. He wanted to see Obi-Wan as raw and open and overwhelming as his own emotions. And maybe he just wanted to see it because he could no longer feel the hints of it in their bond but it was something he wanted with such a bone-deep ache that Anakin couldn’t name the source of that desire. He wanted to see Obi-Wan Kenobi come undone.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, with a will of durasteel, wanted to stay perfectly done up, without a crack in his facade, for fear that even a sliver missing would send all his emotions tumbling out. It would make him a mess of emotions and nerve endings and  _ honesty  _ that he could not bear to be if he was to maintain the emotional control of a Jedi. Out of habit, his shields were drawn high, but what did it matter since Anakin could not have read his feelings anyway. 

Anakin sat there, simmering away with anger and determination to prove he was good but wanting so badly at the same time to see Obi-Wan ruined. He couldn’t feel the Force even an iota. 

Obi-Wan was tapped into it seamlessly, into everything around him like one great big beating heart but that wasn’t what was at the forefront of his mind. No, sitting in front of him and commanding all his attention like he so always did, was Anakin. Obi-Wan could not read him the way he used to, the way he longed to, but there was this heat curling under his skin. And it wasn’t just the heat of Tatooine. It was some unexplainable heat emanating from where he’d normally feel Anakin’s Force signature. It was like a black hole had opened up and taken the familiarity that should be there, but rather than pulling Obi-Wan into its vortex he was left with the imprint of something. It was a  _ something _ and not a  _ nothing _ because it unnerved him and set him alight in the same way he felt being honest would. Anakin sat there with this frustrated idea that Obi-Wan was calm and well but Obi-Wan sat there with this overwhelming rush of sensation. 

He breathed out, trying to cast every distracting feeling into the Force, but somehow he only connected deeper, sensing Anakin’s physicality but not his mind. Sweat, body heat, light linen tunic and golden hair, the scar on his face and the worry creasing his brow. It was like he could feel them all under his hand, like he could smooth away that distress. 

Which only brought his mind reeling back to that morning, to when it had been Anakin’s hands on  _ his _ skin, tending to a wound he had caused. He felt a shiver down his spine at the phantom remembrance of it. 

Melting into Anakin’s presence in the Force had once been like being thrown out under Tatooine’s suns: a relentless light and all encompassing heat. Now what Obi-Wan felt were dappled rays, like the dim ambiance of their home, calmer but darker and promising. It was not like gazing over the still dunes of sand, but like watching clear waters and knowing there was something lurking beneath. 

Yes, he considered Anakin very much like the planet that had seen his birth. Despite the heat and anger and the surface belief that the Force had left him, there was a deeper and thriving vitality. A flourishing greenness, of desert plants that hid away their soft cool centers. Obi-Wan knew what it was for them to be broken open, and everything inside to come pouring out. He knew what it was for the same to happen to Anakin. 

He knew what it was to see Anakin stripped bare, eyes glowing with unchecked desire and need and anger and any other emotion that can exist under the cosmos. He’d seen it all, and what once made him afraid he now missed more than words could describe because the Anakin here on Tatooine was so subdued in comparison. The closest he’d gotten to finding him again was both in the moment that strike had landed and his side had erupted in pain, and in the moment the next morning when Anakin insisted on looking at the damage. 

And he knew that he’d still give up everything for him. 

On Mustafar everything was on fire, the result of a volcanic planet always smoldering away and destroying everything. An impersonal, inescapable heat. Violent, destructive. Tatooine’s heat was pervasive and dry. It was an equalizer all the same, nondiscriminatory but familiar. It’s two suns called out  _ this is a home worth having _ because it’s planet was filled with life in one form or another. But  _ this  _ heat, this flame that was Anakin, was some combination of the two and of so much more because it was as volatile as Obi-Wan knew the man could be, fueled by passion and emotion, but made so much out of a desire to belong and be seen and to know that he was good that really this heat shone like trillions of dazzling stars. Obi-Wan knew this so surely that as he sat and felt the Force, he knew that if he had to give things up for Anakin it wouldn’t even be a sacrifice because really,  _ really  _ he did love him. And he was so suddenly so sure of it like he’d never been before, as they sat there meditating and outside the sands raged and a room away Luke slept and out there in the galaxy Hope lived on and fought on and one day the Force would return for its Chosen One and for that moment all Obi-Wan Kenobi knew and all he cared to know was that he truly loved Anakin Skywalker. 

Obi-Wan did not think - not exactly because he was being impulsive but because this seemed so natural and so right that even if he were to do his usual overthinking and doubting and denying his feelings he would have a hard time not giving in to this urge - when he reached out to Anakin. They were united, physically, even by just a small hand. Around him, the Force sang and heat blossomed and he felt the echoes of it across his skin, down his spine. His hand was steady, a weight over Anakin’s knee. Their breathing was perfectly matched, even as Anakin opened his eyes to look with curiosity at the man he’d called Master. And Obi-Wan looked back at him, eyes glimmering with a familiar tease and promise. So he did not miss the way Anakin’s breathing stuttered for a fraction of a second. Warmth blossomed through his own skin. 

To Obi-Wan, this contact was love and it sunk him deeper into peace and the reverberations of the Force. 

To Anakin, who still felt nothing beyond his own body, the contact was a shock. Electricity along his veins, firing neurons with rapid speed and it did not at all match the frustration that had filled him or the peace he was supposed to be seeking. Obi-Wan looked so cool and unaffected. Anakin breathed in sharply through his nose and mustered a small, tight smile. He kept trying to reach through, motivated now by wanting to find Obi-Wan’s familiar Force signature, but there was this hand on his knee- a distraction. Not like it ever took much to distract him. 

He was supposed to meditate, but that warm weight reminded him of the desires born from his frustration, desires to see Obi-Wan not so perfectly composed. It made his blood run hot, just the desperate thought of it. 

He was already sweating from the heat of his tunics and this forsaken dust ball planet, but Obi-Wan had set a new itch under his skin. His face felt red and his mouth felt dry and he really needed Obi-Wan to not notice or say anything. It had been so long since he’d any contact with anyone, any brief affectionate touches or glances, and this small gesture was something he wanted to sink into and could never get enough of. 

“Anakin-“ And there was that familiar lilt to his own name that had always made him crave more, but he didn’t know what he even wanted until now- “it’s alright if you can’t.”

Terrified Obi-Wan would pull away, Anakin reached out and gripped his arm, “No! I just need-“ He bit off, couldn’t say.

But Obi-Wan saw how his eyes shone with desperation. He wanted so badly to know what Anakin needed, he couldn’t read him anymore so he needed to hear it. And afterall he’d give him anything. A question, a promise, “yes?” 

Obi-Wan’s other hand was on him, a gentle caress to his cheek that had Anakin shuddering. His breath caught in his throat- he still needed more. More than the kind hand on his face, where a calloused thumb brushed down his cheekbone and came tauntingly close to his lips. 

Anakin’s eyes overflowed with adoration and  _ need _ “Please, Obi-Wan.”

He wanted to lean in and kiss him. He’d admit it all, he’d pour his heart out finally, here on the floor of this hut on Tatooine. Instead he watched Anakin tilt his head and press his lips to the palm of his hand, eyes fluttering and kisses so reverential. It was Obi-Wan who was willing to promise everything but it was Anakin who moved. 

He wanted to see Obi-Wan come undone. He wanted his old Master under his hands, those hands on bare skin and watching him blush and writhe. He wanted to hear Obi-Wan gasp and choke on his name. 

“Anakin, wait-“

“You’re still hurt, let me-“ Anakin had tilted them, he’d looked into Obi-Wan’s eyes as he pushed his shoulders until the Jedi lay with his back on the floor and Anakin bracketed over him. The injury to his side was so far from his mind, but here was Anakin still caring for him, choosing to be cautious. It made any hesitations die on his tongue. 

Obi-Wan watched the darkness in Anakin’s eyes as, for the second time that day, he pushed open the ties of Obi-Wan’s tunics and exposed his skin to the hot air, and to his touch. Obi-Wan wanted to pull him closer and at least kiss him, but Anakin was kneeling just too far- He looked enraptured and Obi-Wan had never been so on display, like he was some source of entertainment. An opera, or holo drama the way Anakin was staring at him like he was the greatest thing in the universe. But he almost looked lost, which is why Obi-Wan was caught off guard by the harsh pull of his clothes that left him bare, breathless. 

“ _ Anakin _ !” His head went dipping low, it wasn’t a kiss but a searing bite at the curve of Obi-Wan’s neck. He wanted to dislike it, wanted to protest but the blood rushing to his cock and the cottony haze in his head was too telling. Those complaints turned into a breathy moan. Obi-Wan’s hand tangled into familiar golden curls. He could feel sand mixed into those strands and almost wanted to tease him about it but then Anakin’s tongue laved over where he’d bitten him and Obi-Wan arched into it. It felt perfect but still  _ not enough  _ because he was already growing hard and needed more. 

He tried to prop himself up on one elbow but Anakin wasted no time forcing him back flat. 

“Just let me,” his voice didn’t carry a trace of neediness. It was only low and commanding and Obi-Wan melted into the sensation of those words breathed against his throat. 

“Yes, alright-“

His eyes were lidded and swimming with want and  _ yes _ , this was much closer to what Anakin wanted. When he pulled away, Obi-Wan let out a gasp at the loss. He was rewarded with the sight of Anakin leaning back and pulling off his tunic. He was beautiful, practically glowing gold in their faint light, on skin that those binary suns had been very kind to. 

Obi-Wan kept his groan muffled and to himself when Anakin shifted over him, straddling his hips and  _ finally  _ he got the first friction of their bodies rubbing together. “ _ Fuck _ — Anakin, if you do not—“

Anakin’s eyes glowed with a wicked pride, he reached down to the bulge of Obi-Wan’s cock, “What, Master? Will you beg for it?”

The shock of that ripped a groan from deep within him, and there was no doubt Anakin felt the way he stiffened harder. His hand, the left hand of human flesh and muscle, squeezed a slow, tortuous pressure over the hard line of his cock as Obi-Wan rocked into him once, twice, before Anakin was already pulling back. 

Anakin yanked down Obi-Wan’s pants, earning him a hiss through his teeth as every hot, sensitive part of him was exposed. He kept pulling until his trousers trapped him, waistband cutting into the muscled meat of his thigh. Obi-Wan could only watch as Anakin, that same dark and glinting look on his face, settled the clothed curve of his ass down like he was taking Obi-Wan’s cock. He could practically feel it, imaging the clench of Anakin taking him, or getting to really touch him and not only get these not-good-enough teases. 

But the way Anakin ground down was like this  _ was _ good enough, like he could get off just like this, head thrown back and his mech hand gripping Obi-Wan’s thigh like everything depended on it. It was sure to bruise. He didn’t care. 

Obi-Wan finally touched him again to pull their hips together, a cascading roll of his hard cock into the covered cleft of Anakin’s ass. He wanted a sign, to know this was alright and it was what Anakin wanted and the high moan ripped from the man’s throat told him just that. 

But he wanted to do more, wanted to get Anakin off properly-

He slid his hand from his hip beneath the waistband of his pants “ _ Ah- _ “ Anakin grit his teeth at the touch of Obi-Wan’s rough hand around him. 

It was so good, it really was, but Anakin didn’t want to just get off, he wanted to see  _ Obi-Wan _ be the one who fell apart. 

Anakin pulled the hand off and pinned it to the floor by Obi-Wan’s head. They leaned close, breathing the same air, but still Anakin would not just smash their lips together. He  _ would _ trail his mouth, open and hot over Obi-Wan’s skin and he would slide his other hand so he could push down his pants and take both their cocks in his hand. They slotted together wet with precum and Obi-Wan curved into it. He could only see Anakin’s eyes glint with dark promise before he started to pump his hand and the frictious slide sent a curling wave of pleasure through him. It was almost too much but instead of pulling away he was riding his hips into each wave of it and moaning as Anakin sucked into his skin. 

“ _ Anakin— _ “ he was already so close- “Force,  _ fuck _ Anakin I’m going to—“ 

Anakin’s lips were red and glistening, his wrist twisting perfectly to send Obi-Wan careening into orgasmic bliss. His moan was open and loud and Anakin knew it was the same punched out sound he made when he was hurt and somehow that made him love it even more. 

Obi-Wan knew Anakin was not there to receive him but he blasted into the Force and the ghost of their bond all of his love and ecstasy and how beautiful Anakin was to him. 

He knew that those feelings could not have been what had made Anakin come just a second after him but he wanted to tell himself that was what it was. That it was something more than physical when he came over Obi-Wan’s stomach, spurts landing on his chest and the hollow of his throat. It was more than physical that Anakin used Obi-Wan’s own hand to swipe through their mixed spend before sucking those coated fingers into his mouth. The moan rumbling through him, that he could feel in his head and down to his thighs where Anakin still braced against him, it all stored in this deeper part of Obi-Wan’s brain. He still wanted to kiss Anakin. 

But Anakin had other intentions, leaning in to lick down Obi-Wan’s chest and clean the mess right off him. It was unreal. Anakin’s eyes were dark and hungry, travelling the length of his body while his mouth moved so slowly. There was only so much Obi-Wan could take, breath already ragged. “Please, dear one,”

Obi-Wan did not have to say more, Anakin lifted his head. He wanted to pull him into an embrace, wanted to kiss and hold him and gentle his hand through Anakin’s hair endlessly. But Anakin drew away, sitting back not even in the space between Obi-Wan’s legs, but further away- isolated. Terror flashed through Obi-Wan because Anakin’s face was nearing impassive again but if he had to give  _ any _ name to the expression he found, it would be regret. 

Obi-Wan was lying there, skin damp not just with sweat but with  _ Anakin  _ \- all the lingering marks and spit and cum that was still there - on skin only exposed because Anakin had ripped off his shirt. The bandage and bruising on his side was perfectly visible and together he made quite a display of Anakin Skywalker, from pleasure to pain to whatever this really happened to be. Face flushed, laying there ready to give everything to a man who would not quite look at him. 

The sandstorm raged, the boarded door shuddered under it and the only light was from the meager lamp. 

Anakin’s voice was gentle in the silence of their home, but it was not a comfort. It solidified something in the pit of Obi-Wan’s stomach: yes, it had to be regret. “I’m going to check on Luke.”

Obi-Wan did not watch Anakin stand up and go, for he could not bring himself to. 

He told himself he would be able to tolerate it all, that he would not mind if all of that had happened and Anakin had refused to look at him, or kiss him and then retreated into himself if it weren’t for two things. The first was that it was the third time since coming to Tatooine that he’d seen a spark of the Anakin he’d known. And now it was a pattern of these emotionally raw moments where he could tell himself  _ yes, this is  _ my  _ Anakin.  _ It was the Anakin no one else had ever seen. Raw, powerful, the man who’d become a powerful Jedi and undoubtedly would have been an even stronger Sith. 

The second was that it was the only time in just as long that Anakin had called him Master. That old title that had run out years ago, when Anakin passed the trials and his braid was cut, but he’d continued to say it anyway. It wasn’t too odd when Obi-Wan had indeed been granted the rank of Master, but they both knew that’s not why Anakin said it. He was respectful and curt when he said it to the other Jedi and Council members, but when he said it to Obi-Wan it was intimate and personal. He’d never been able to ask Anakin to stop because Obi-Wan knew he’d miss it too much if he did. 

———

The storm continued well into the night and when morning came, Tatooine’s two suns greeted finally clear skies. Dust was still settling so there was a haze over the ground but the hot winds and gusts of dirt had all abated. Obi-Wan found sand like drifts against their home and their shed, piled up like how he’d seen snow on other planets. It took the morning just to air everything back out again, ridding sand from all sorts of cracks and crevices and sweeping the floor three times over until every step didn’t just crunch underfoot. 

“I have to get into Mos Eisley. It’ll be busy after the storm, but it can’t be avoided.”

Usually that would earn him some quip from Anakin about how he’d fit right in with the Cantina low life or something to that effect but instead there was nothing. Anakin stared at Luke, who sat playing on the floor, but he did not reach for him and the best response he gave was  _ maybe _ a nod, but Obi-Wan could have just imagined it. 

“I shouldn’t be gone too late.” He was stalling, wanting to hear Anakin say  _ something _ . Obi-Wan brushed his hand lightly over Luke’s whispy blond hair. The child was the only one happy, but Obi-Wan managed a bright smile just for him before leaving. 

The speeder still looked worse for wear when he dragged it out of the shed, but that was as it should be. He hopped up and swung his leg over, sliding into the seat. He did not notice Anakin had followed him out until he asked in a dry but not entirely uncaring voice “Did you change that bandage this morning?”

Really, of all the things- “Yes. It’s just a bruise now. I doubt the scar will last.”

Anakin nodded and turned back inside before Obi-Wan could even voice his thanks. But why should he thank him when Anakin was the one to hit him in the first place, and to create this new tension as well, so why should  _ he  _ be the one that felt bad? 

His head felt overfull and he didn’t want to think. Besides, he had errands to run and one always had to be on their toes at Mos Eisley spaceport. The speeder’s engine churned with an unpromising grind and spark before it came rumbling to life. Obi-Wan glanced at suns, which looked like hazy reflections rippling in the desert sky, guiding him forward. With a subtle grip, he was off speeding over the sands. 

He planned a day of resupplying, but the Force never allowed things to be so simple. This was the beginning of a web, and Obi-Wan had come to the end of his single strand and would now meet where it crisscrossed with so many others. Obi-Wan would be thrown back into the thick of the galaxy and all its political affairs and it would be the end of his makeshift peace of Tatooine. Not quite the end yet, but the beginning of the end. The galaxy had a long way to go, and the Force was sure to see it through, with the old Team, two glimmering lights of hope leading the way. 


	6. Chapter 6

Mos Eisley was a mess of sentients, speeders, and all the usual rabble, but there was something much worse. 

Though it was not the most obvious thing in the crowd, it was the first thing to catch Obi-Wan’s eye. The gleam of sunlight off of slightly dirtied beskar was not a sight he could forget, having seen it almost every day of the Clone Wars. A singular trooper whose armor was decorated only with sand. There was not a trace of identifying paint on him. Obi-Wan, dressed like every other human of Tatooine and covering himself in a hooded robe, knew he looked entirely unexciting. But it did not make him feel any more reassured. In his head, it could only be a moment before he was caught, the trooper would see him, and then what? Would he pull out the lightsaber concealed in his robe and declare himself a Jedi for all the town to see? And he still had supplies to fetch, things he needed to do so they could survive out here. But somehow this lone trooper reminded him of everything else in the galaxy, the problems that could not be ignored. 

The Galactic Empire was a threat to everything that lived, and here he was harboring the supposed Sith apprentice that made it all possible. His side ached like a reminder of what he was doing, and who he was. 

_Patience._ Something in his mind echoed with the voice of his old Master. 

Obi-Wan breathed deeply. There is only peace.

The unmarked trooper stood, a sentry, like he was guarding the ship depot, or maybe looking at who was coming and going. There were no other signs of trouble, which only set Obi-Wan more on edge. It could be anything. It could even be Sidious, or someone looking for them. But that was ridiculous, no one knew where they were. Well, Yoda knew, but that wasn’t information he’d give up. Not even if- 

Obi-Wan, even in the middle of Mos Eisley, even fearing he could connect to answers he did not want, reached out his consciousness with the Force. He could glean nothing from the trooper except a deep familiarity- but this was not surprising. If anything, it made a sour, pitying lump form in his throat: the idea he could have once known this trooper who had his identity now stripped from him. 

He needed to get back to the hut. 

———

For a moment, it was like everything was normal- or almost normal. Even if Obi-Wan could have convinced himself that everything was fine, there always would have been the lingering feeling of a lie. 

When he dismounted the speeder, his feet hit sand painted gold under the sunlight. It should have seemed peaceful, especially after the storm they’d had. As he approached the home he could hear Anakin yelling but the fear lasted only for a second- it was _happy_ yelling. Joyous shouts and cheering and always followed by the giggling screams of Luke. The icy grip of fear was replaced with an overflow of affection. Obi-Wan hesitated for a moment, wanting to just enjoy this feeling. He wanted to enjoy the delusion that he and Anakin were just here raising Luke and nothing else was going on. He wanted to imagine that he could step inside and sweep Luke into his arms and join whatever they were celebrating, and that he could kiss Anakin and everything would be normal. 

And for that first moment, that’s exactly what everything was. Obi-Wan was greeted with the sight of Anakin lifting his son into the air and cheering that he was amazing. It made his heart just overflow. His raised eyebrow amusement was met with one of Anakin’s massive grins. 

“Obi-Wan! You’re back!”

An obvious assessment but Anakin was like the energetic boy he’d been a few years ago - before the war - and Obi-Wan couldn’t crush that. He was spinning and bouncing like he was going through his katas before he set Luke down on the floor again. “Alright, Luke, show Obi-Wan!” 

Obi-Wan stood, arms crossed and watching as Luke, radiating happiness, batted his little hands on the floor and looked like he was going to fall over backwards. 

“Noooo-“ Anakin was groaning, gave his son a little support and maybe a little push “I swear he can do it-“

Then Luke stopped laughing as much, like the next movements took all his concentration. He leaned forward, plopped his hands down on the ground and then just started crawling. He hardly wobbled as he set a slow pace over towards Obi-Wan. Anakin was beaming. 

Luke had shown no signs that he was interested in all sorts of the things that Anakin thought he should be. He loved to babble, but none of it sounded like attempts at words. He could stand if he was holding onto things, but preferred sitting. And he’d certainly made no efforts at crawling. But here he was, doing it perfectly like this was nothing new. 

Obi-Wan could almost forget everything else that plagued him over this, lifting Luke up into his arms with the same pride Anakin had done it with. “Oh my, little one.” Luke’s hand was threateningly close to his beard but again he could not care. 

Anakin, all splayed and stretched out on the floor, was still just grinning ear to ear “Yeah! I set him down and he just started going for it! I’ve been getting him to crawl all afternoon!”

“Then I’m surprised he’s not falling over with exhaustion,” Obi-Wan teased. Luke looked far from tired out though, and when he was set back down he moved around just because he could. 

If the only tension at the moment was because of the events of yesterday, Obi-Wan could have let it go. He didn’t _want_ to let it go, but he would have, so they could still have the moments like this. He would have because this, _this_ life on Tatooine, it was their future and he saw nothing that would interrupt that. 

But it wasn’t the only tension weighing on Obi-Wan. He could not ignore Mos Eisley and he could not keep it from Anakin. 

Even as Anakin watched his son with pride and love pouring out of him, Obi-Wan knew he had to deliver the crushing news. Was it news? He wasn’t even sure what it was or what any of it meant. 

“Anakin,” he took a seat at their round stone table. They were very near one another, even if Anakin was lounging on the ground. Obi-Wan hated how unsure he felt- how insecure in his own skin. “I saw something in Mos Eisley-“

“What? Sand? Any of the usual sleemos who go there?”

“Anakin, _I_ am one of the _sleemo_ s who goes there. I have to for supplies, you know that.” He sighed, sitting back and crossing his legs so the ankle of one rested on the knee of the other. As reassuring as it was to have Anakin talking and being his usual contrary self, Obi-Wan didn’t have the patience to indulge him. “There was a clone trooper near the ship depot. He was unmarked and I didn’t see signs of anyone else, but it still makes me worry.”

Anakin was silent. His face frowned in troubled thought. He absently watched Luke stacking and demolishing his toys in routine that made sense only to him. When he spoke, it was a question Obi-Wan could not answer. 

“Do we have to leave?”

“I don’t know. I bought what we needed, so there’s no need to venture out again for a while. I want to believe we will be safe, but there’s nothing here of interest to the Empire except-“

“Except for me.” Anakin finished bitterly. He would not look at Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan did not need the Force to know that his thoughts ventured into the even more bothersome knowledge that looking for Anakin also meant looking for Luke and finding _one_ would mean finding both. 

Obi-Wan also sat with the knowledge that time was running out for them to discuss these things. He’d wanted, for the same ignorant reasons as Anakin, to not address a multitude of things. But Anakin’s loss of the Force, the injury to Obi-Wan’s side, what they had done yesterday, and now the presence of this trooper necessitated _talking_ . And _really_ talking about things. 

“You and Luke should leave- or maybe you two stay here and _I’ll_ leave, it’ll get the Empire to follow me-“

“And what, be merciful to the planet you’re hiding on? Sidious’ record doesn’t speak very highly of his capacity as a merciful ruler.”

“Obi-Wan, I _can’t_ have him find you, either one of you.”

He sat forward, uncrossing his legs so he leaned with forearms braced on his knees. It was a position that allowed him to stare seriously at Anakin, whose lounging now seemed uncomfortable. The younger sat up, knowing the reprimand that was coming and beating it with 

“I’m so sick of your lectures.”

Obi-Wan imagined that it could have been said with all the venom and hate that it deserved, but Anakin’s voice was tired and overwrought. 

So Obi-Wan’s in return, was patient but severe. 

“Anakin, whether or not you ever connect with the Force again, or whatever happens between you and the Empire, this needs to be discussed. There are things neither of us can run from.” Even Tatooine did not protect them from their own pains. The heat and dryness was not enough to evaporate the constant waves of emotion and guilt. They were not forgiving to blame. Tatooine offered them practicality, a life to cultivate. But they did not have the luxury to pretend their pasts did not still exist, like they had not shaped so much of the galaxy they still lived in. “Please, let me guide you through this.”

“…Okay”

Obi-Wan did not move or relax when he posed his first query: “Do you think about Leia?”

It threw Anakin off guard. He expected Obi-Wan’s interrogation to be about the Force, about Sidious and all those such things. “Yes…” He began with the greatest hesitation but Anakin Skywalker was never one for holding back. His emotions were all out, just like the rest of him. “Of course I think about her. I love having Luke here. I love every time he smiles and laughs and he’s already growing up so much-” His first birthday was drawing closer and closer. “And I love him even when he cries and when I see him sleeping, and when I see you holding him and how he lights up. So of course I think about Leia, and how I’m missing all the same things from her. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see her…”

Obi-Wan then posed the next question- a statement actually. “Padme is in the same position. She must be missing Luke, but she nearly died and would never have been able to see either of your children.”

“I know. I did all of it to save her from my visions but _I_ was the one who almost let her die. I didn’t feel anything when it happened, I _couldn't_ , but I knew she was dying. I don't know what saved her, but I think about it now. I can’t change it- but I regret it.”

“And you miss her?”

“Of course. She was my wife, Obi-Wan, and I destroyed the Republic to keep her alive. Yeah, I kriffing miss her-”

“Do you still love her?”

Anakin looked at him, undenied fury in his eyes “What sort of question is that, of course I love her! Why-“

“You know what I’m really asking, Anakin.”

Anakin sat with all his breath built and puffed up inside of him, anger boiling through his veins like magma and melted metal. For a second his mind went vortexing back to this very planet, years before, when he’d discovered his mother and slaughtered the village, then yelled at Padme that this was all Obi-Wan’s fault. That same blame bubbled up, ready to come spilling out, but Anakin swallowed it. Maybe Obi-Wan was right, and this needed to be done. 

“I love Padme, and I always will.” Anakin stated with complete certainty. Obi-Wan nodded, and they both knew the admission that would come next. Anakin sat up properly; it wasn’t a topic suited to laying carelessly on the floor. 

“I don’t know when it changed- or maybe it was never what we thought. With the war, we were both always so busy so when we saw each other— And it was _always_ going to be secret moments, we knew that. It was never going to be the love we wanted it to be. I said when the war was over that I'd leave, and we could really be together, but _Padme_ was the one who said I needed to be a Jedi. She was always reminding me that my duty had to come first.” One of the many ways she and Obi-Wan were so very alike. Of course he’d love two versions of the same person and not realize it. “But I always said our love had to come first, I didn't want to let her go and it meant… it meant a lot of times, I didn’t trust her. So I don’t know- if it weren’t for all of this, I might have never realized.”

“And do you think Padme knew?”

“She’s the smartest person I know-” Anakin sighed, praise and affirmation mixed together. “ _Of course_ she knew we didn’t really love one another. But honestly, Obi-Wan, it’s not like it mattered. She was pregnant and our marriage was still a secret, we hardly saw each other even when I was back on Coruscant. What was she supposed to say? ‘I’m sorry Ani but you don’t love me as your wife’? Like I would have taken that well-“ Anakin rolled his eyes. 

Maybe it was only the apathy of his loss of the Force that made him realize it. For once his mind was quiet and he could stop lying to himself, stop convincing himself of things that weren’t true. It had seemed so obvious then. He loved Padme, which was true and always would be. But at some point their relationship had changed- what began as love and lust and affection became her one-sided adoration and respect while he viewed her like a thing to own. He viewed her as _his_. That wasn’t the change, but it exemplified the problem that would always be there. His love was possessive. In the heat of Mustafar he came closer to killing her than saving her, fearing she’d already left him. 

He knew they loved one another, but they shouldn’t have gotten married, it wasn’t that kind of love between them. 

Padme has known that at some point, and apparently so had Obi-Wan.

Somehow, Anakin was frustrated again. “What does any of this have to do with the trooper in Mos Eisley? Going over my _feelings_ isn’t going to make us not be in danger?”

The answer was painfully obvious, even if he didn’t want to admit it. So obvious even, that Obi-Wan couldn’t just say it. 

It was Anakin’s _feelings_ that had gotten them in this whole mess, it was his love for Padme that Sidious had used against him. And if they weren’t proactive about this trooper on Tatooine, it would be fear, a desire for stability, and a love for Luke that would put them in danger again. 

“We cannot leave Tatooine,” Obi-Wan stated. The _we_ referred to either combination, him and Luke alone or all three of them together— Not like abandoning Anakin was _ever_ in the realm of consideration. “Until we either know more about that trooper or the Empire, this is still the safest place for us, for _all_ of us.”

If they just packed up and left at any sign of the Empire, they’d run until they were floating in a ship at the galaxy’s empty edges. They would run until exhaustion got the better of them. There was nowhere in known space where they would actually be free from Sidious’ imperial thumb.

“When I ask you to leave me, it isn’t because I want you to.” Force knew leaving Luke was the last thing Anakin wanted. If he did it for any reason, it’d be some warped self-punishment and nothing else. “You know how I feel about-“

“Yes, I do know.” Obi-Wan knew quite well how Anakin felt about losing people. He knew how deep his emotions ran, his attachments, his affections. He knew the fear of loss that Anakin held, the fear that had always plagued him. And he did not mean to negate that, to be unkind or unfeeling by refusing to make that promise. “It is exactly why I swear not to leave you.”

Anakin nodded. He fell quiet again, but for now at least, the air was not weighed down by those fears. 

Anakin, who struggled so long to feel secure that those around him really loved him, got it through his head just barely that Obi-Wan was being honest. He had sworn two things in just as many days: he would not hit Anakin back, and he would not leave him. And to each promise were so many things left unspoken, but for once Anakin could think of them as real things, and not just imaginings. He could think about Obi-Wan and know he would not be abandoned, they would not be forced away from one another. This wasn’t like in the Order, when their perfect team was interrupted. 

It didn’t mean he was just ready and willing to confront all his feelings though- especially not the ones he’d spent a very long time burying. He was about to slip into his too-loud thoughts and psych himself out of all the progress and openness Obi-Wan had just walked him through when he stilled. 

He looked at Luke, who was sitting up and making another tower. Without looking he could feel Obi-Wan’s eyes on him. But what caught Anakin was this feeling like he was sinking into sand, like he was being pulled down. Even more specifically like something had reached up and taken a grip inside him and was coaxing him into a swirling abyss. But he knew he wasn’t really moving, his hands scrabbling on the smooth floor under him reassured him of that. 

“Anakin?”

“Someone’s here.”

He didn’t know how he knew, but he _did_. It was like a burning in his veins, and even in the electric sensors of his right arm and all the way through to his bones. 

Obi-Wan didn’t question him - not vocally yet- just stood and went outside. The horizon was clear, though it was getting harder to see with the sun getting low. “Anakin, there’s no one-“

“No, they’re coming from Mos Eisley.” It was like his words were automatic, but he didn’t doubt them even when they sounded foreign to his own ears. 

If Anakin had been able to remember his childhood more, then he’d know what this was. Shmi Skywalker knew what was happening. Any parent of a certain variety of children would recognize it instantly. Strong, unexplainable instincts about things he couldn’t possibly know- a sure sign of the Force. Anakin had looked for his old talent in all the obvious ways he’d known after years of training and familiarity. The slow, uncertain experience of growing to know the Force again was entirely different though. Someday, along the same web of their lives and futures that was currently unfolding, Anakin would one day see this all mirrored in Luke, and Padme would see it in Leia, and only then would he understand just how much he had left to learn. It seemed the beginnings of his journeys were always meant to start on Tatooine. After all that time, he was still the same bright eyed novice he’d always been, eyes shining with the light of twin suns. Here he was, Anakin Skywalker born again. 

Obi-Wan, whose thoughts did not stray to the cosmic importance of what was happening to his companion, was aware of the weight of his saber on his hip. His mind focused on the safety of both Anakin and Luke, but in its deep recesses he heard that echo like he had this morning: Qui-Gon’s voice, _Patience._

“Let’s get back inside.” And when they were sat down again, which he insisted on. Anakin looked pale and near dead on his feet. He looked sick. He was very different from the overjoyed sight Obi-Wan had been greeted with when he returned home. “Do you know anything else-“

Anakin opened his mouth, then closed it. The crease between his eyebrows deepened. It was neither a yes or a no. If that was the case, they could only wait to find out. 

“You mean you don’t feel anything?” Anakin had swallowed thickly before asking. He had this dry, sandy feeling in his throat which wasn’t surprising. 

Obi-Wan shook his head. Should he have felt something? He was the one who was still connected to the Force, but to him the desert felt as blank as it’s sand. He could not feel an impending arrival that spelled out their doom. He could only feel the three of them. As much as he already didn’t want to just sit and wait, he knew it would only get Anakin looking more sick, more on edge. “Are you sure there’s someone-“

“ _Yes_ ,” Anakin insisted, looking Obi-Wan in the eyes for the first time- for the first time since yesterday really. Since yesterday when he’d had no shame in looking directly at Obi-Wan as he pushed him to their floor and yanked off his clothes and even licked down his chest. _Force_ —

Obi-Wan couldn’t think about that now. He shook his head then stood up again. An antsy cycle of up and down, not feeling really settled no matter what they did. “Help me unload the speeder, I didn’t get to when I got back.” Anakin looked up at him like he had no idea what the distraction was. “I wanted to know why you were yelling and cheering. Come on.”

They went back out into the much cooler evening air. They carried the conversation between grunts and movements, calling out to one another each time they ducked back into their home. “What can I say- I was excited.”

But Anakin’s voice came out sounding a little hollow, and his steps landed like he thought the sand would open up into a great pit beneath him. 

Obi-Wan huffed as he unhooked and lifted a bundled crate. “You shouldn’t worry so much. Luke is a very bright child, he’ll talk and do everything when he’s ready.”

“I know that, it’s just-“ Anakin undid the latch of another package “Since when have I ever been good with kids? I just don’t want to mess it up- mess _him_ up, because I don’t know all those developmental stages and everything.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan had a hand on his hip, pushing past their curtain and stepping onto sand once more. “You can’t possibly mess him up. I’ve never seen a happier baby.” Not like he had a wealth of experience. “And if his crawling is anything to go by, Luke is more ready than you realize.”

“Are you saying he _can_ talk, he's just choosing not to yet?”

Obi-Wan shrugged, but his grin glinted mischievous. “I could never claim to understand a Skywalker.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and took off the last of their supplies before leading the speeder back into their storage shed. “Very funny, Obi-Wan.” But at least it’d gotten a smile out of both of them. 

Unwrapping packages of food, protein reserves, bacta, and all sorts of other things in the cramped space of their supposed kitchen, Obi-Wan found his thoughts straying again. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t sense anything, because he was too stuck in his head to think straight. It was never a problem he’d had before, but now the past days existed like phantoms in his mind. It was again like he could feel the too-careful brush and guidance of Anakin’s hands when checking his injury— and how all that kindness was lost hours later. It reminded him that Anakin was always emotional and impulsive and his glimpses of the man he knew he usually was - not the one robbed of his emotion and in shock and mourning - would always be this unpredictable. The most honest he’d seen him was in those moments: 

When he cheered for Luke. When he’d almost asked if Obi-Wan wanted to be called the boy’s other father. When they’d fought and his fury reared up and when, subsequently, he’d tended to Obi-Wan’s wound. When Anakin had again called him Master and watched him with hungry eyes, and just the opposite when Anakin sat looking lost and almost frightened because he could not feel the Force. Anakin Skywalker was not the docile thing he’d been in coming to Tatooine, and Obi-Wan had never expected to miss the contrary Anakin that ignored his orders and demanded to spar and would cry when his nightmares were too overwhelming and would lash out-

But he missed him because that was _his_ Anakin. The empty one belonged to Sidious. 

The grip on his arm first made him startle and flush, but it brought Obi-Wan back to reality. Anakin’s silence spoke volumes, as did his direction outside- their Visitor. Obi-Wan still felt nothing- but only now did he realize it wasn’t quite _nothing_ . It was a purposeful absence- a _shielding_. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything, they hadn’t wanted to be felt, which only meant-

Anakin was already outside but he was still so Obi-Wan came to his side. He knew of the weight on his hip which reassured them of safety, but he no longer felt that was what they needed. No, he knew as soon as he saw the silhouette distinct even under a grey robe. Really, even that hood couldn’t have properly hidden the two distinct points-

“Ahsoka?” 

There had been lots of things in the galaxy that could shock them these days- really any glimmer of hope and joy was a surprise. But the way that Anakin lit up when he saw his former Padawan was so right. It was nostalgic and _good_ and it made Obi-Wan’s eyes burn (if it weren’t for the dry heat of the sand, he might cry). 

Ahsoka. Obi-Wan was still amazed at how well she looked after leaving the Order; she’d grown so much since they met on Christophsis. When she pulled back the cowl, it did not so much reveal her identity but show her features- kind, determined.

She smiled. He hadn’t seen her look that gentle in so long, before they’d seen her go to Mandalore, before she left the Order even. Her voice was simple and sure and perfect, “Hey Skyguy.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👁👄👁  
> This is like 99% dialogue, I’m so sorry but it was necessary.  
> also this chapter does include s7 Clone Wars SPOILERS- basically an episode summary of the finale

“Wait I don’t understand.”

The three of them sat like the old team that had taken on so many battles during the war. Of course, so much had changed since then. Ahsoka was mostly covered in a grey robe but Obi-Wan still missed the sight of her Padawan braid dangling off her montrals. He missed the idea of the three of them together, all the times they’d been stranded on some planet or were dispatched for months on missions together- it was wrong to miss the war, but he had undoubtedly missed this. 

Ahsoka had come from Mos Eisley on her own speeder that looked just as beat up as theirs. Obi-Wan was no longer concerned over not being able to sense her, since clearly they’d taught her well enough to shield herself— but there hadn’t been the opportunity to point out that _Anakin_ had.

At the glorious reunion, the wonderful sight of Ahsoka, they’d welcomed her inside and she declined the offer for food but Obi-Wan insisted on tea at least, so they sat with three steaming mugs on the table. 

Her reaction to Luke was equal parts amusing and tender. She at first gawked- because of course she’d never even known about Anakin and Padme much less that Padme was pregnant. And she had said something along the lines of “Oh Force there’s a child.” And then backtracked and asked, incredulous “ _Your_ child?”

Which left both Anakin and Obi-Wan floundering for a second because she clearly meant it as _their_ child, the both of them, Obi-Wan included, two fathers- and so Obi-Wan had to clear his throat and properly introduce “This is Luke. Anakin and Padme’s son.”

Anakin’s cheeks were still pink when Ahsoka, grinning impishly, tutted “Senator Amidala,” like she'd uncovered a grand conspiracy and the final detail was sliding into place perfectly. 

Luke didn’t seem at all bothered by their guest and just crawled to Ahsoka’s feet, grasping at her knees so he could stand. Anakin fought down the urge to boast at how well his son crawled and he’d only started today. Then Luke either lost interest or was satisfied with what he saw and went back to sitting on the floor. 

“So the two of you have been busy I see.”

“Hardly,” Obi-Wan huffed, but it was light and he was smiling. “We don’t do much out here other than what it takes to survive.”

“You’ve raised a child!” The excitement that crept into her voice was like this was _exactly_ what she wanted to talk about. It was endearing but made no sense- she hadn’t known about Luke before now- and she lifted him up into her arms. Obi-Wan was struck by what a domestic scene they made. “I’ve learned the hard way that taking care of kids is no easy task, which is what I came here for-“

Anakin shook his head and Luke hiccuped; Ahsoka had stopped when he raised a hand to cut her off. “No, you didn’t answer my question. How are you even _here_ in the first place? We know the clones were ordered to kill all the Jedi, _you_ were on Mandalore.” With his own men. Obi-Wan knew Anakin blamed himself for that, for everything that had ever happened to his former Padawan. She could have gotten away, she wasn’t even a Jedi anymore. Here she was, clearly alive and well but Anakin was still overwhelmed with guilt. 

Ahsoka’s cheeriness diminished. She sat Luke down in her lap and seemed unbothered when his hands pulled at her robe and montrals. But she didn’t look stubborn or impatient, as she so often had. She seemed wiser. She listened to Anakin’s confusion and her calm tone was the perfect match to it. Maybe she’d learned more from Obi-Wan than he’d even realized. 

“Yes, I was on Mandalore. We were successful in capturing Maul and allowing Bo-Katan martial control over the city. It wasn’t my job to stay and sort that all out, so me and the 332nd left, with Maul. But on our way, well…” When her voice trailed off, she was looking at Anakin. Clearly that’s when it happened, when the clones turned on the Jedi. But there was another kind of hurt in her eyes, like that wasn’t the only thing. “I felt him in the Force, everything that happened right before the Clones got that order, Rex was right there.” Anakin couldn’t meet her eyes. Obi-Wan had just finished with Greivous at that point, and was working to inform Council. He hadn’t felt anything then, but Ahsoka wasn’t as distracted. The timeline fit together though. That must have been when Anakin killed Master Windu, and swore allegiance to Palpatine. He understood why Ahsoka looked so hurt, maybe even betrayed. 

“We know the Order the clones were under, if those memories are too painful, we won’t ask you to relive all of that.”

She shook her head, “No, it wasn’t like that. Rex, he tried to fight it, I watched him. He didn’t understand it but he knew about the chips, from everything with Fives. His second of hesitation saved my life.”

Anakin’s eyes were drawn dark, “We know what happened at the Temple- orders direct from Rex to clear everyone out.”

“You don’t understand!” Obi-Wan saw a flicker that reminded him she was a child. It was a flicker of hope. 

He would have said it was misplaced, but the plan the Force had devised proved he was wrong. Ahsoka was right to hope. When Anakin had failed and slaughtered, and throughout the galaxy Jedi were struck down, the Force had bundled away a new hope and gifted it to the Chosen One’s former Padawan. And here she came now, bearing the message that all was not lost. 

But she didn’t seem so eager to explain things quickly. Entirely characteristically, Obi-Wan, holding his tea and drinking slowly, was content to listen at the pace she dictated. He trusted she would explain it all in time. And ever the opposite, Anakin wanted answers faster than she could provide them, and ones he’d only half understand if he didn’t let her tell the whole story. 

“Rex warned me about the chips so I caused a distraction-“

“What kind of distraction?”

Ahsoka glowered. It made Anakin sound so much like the skeptical Master he’d always been with her. Very hypocritical considering he was easily ten times more reckless than her. “I let Maul out-“

“You _what_?!”

“Look Skyguy, it’s not like I had a lot of options. I had a ship full of clones who wanted to kill me and I wouldn’t hurt them— But I knew there was a chance I could get Rex to medbay and _maybe_ get the chip out. Maul was, admittedly, a little _too_ effective and the ship was going down. But it worked though. I got the chip out of Rex and he was himself again!” The energy in her voice faltered and her next sentences were factual, like she was reporting to Council. “Maul got away and the ship went down. Rex and I managed another escape vessel. No one survived.”

Ahsoka cleared her throat and took a sip of her drink. She didn’t seem to care much for it and drank to be respectful to Obi-Wan’s hospitality more than anything. Luke was settled quite comfortably in her lap. It was only because he was too young to understand that they felt no discomfort in discussing this in front of him. 

“We know how dangerous it would be, but we had to get back to the Core. We wanted to know what was going on and who was left. Rex said it would be everyone, but I insisted, I said we had to get to the Temple.”

“Yeah but we heard it was _Rex_ and the 501st that cleared the Temple.”

Ahsoka grinned. “It was a nice touch, wasn’t it?”

While Obi-Wan did trust her immensely, he didn’t like even the idea she was making light of the death of so many Jedi. Anakin only looked baffled, but Obi-Wan had the signature crease between his brows. But he did not interrupt. 

“We didn’t have much time, obviously, and really I expected the Temple to be empty. I didn’t expect to find anyone, or at least not a _living_ anyone. And for the most part, yeah it was empty. It was horrible. It was almost worse than seeing bodies. There was just _no one_ , like there’d never even been anyone there. And I don’t know, I don’t think we would have stayed long except I wanted to see the crèche. I can’t explain it, but I knew it was like the last time I’d see any of it. So I thought it would be empty too but it wasn’t, they were there— all of them, and I mean _all_ of the younglings-“

Obi-Wan’s mug clattered to the table a little too hard. His eyes felt hot and his vision swam. He could feel Anakin’s grip on his arm, steadying him. His breath was shaky and he put a hand over his mouth like he was some scandalized star of a holodrama- he almost laughed. Actually, he did laugh. It was a dry cough of a noise, a little stuck in his throat but Obi-Wan was smiling, really smiling. Oh Force, oh _bless the Force_ . He could practically feel it, all the life that hadn’t been lost glowing out there, a _promise_ of something good. 

Ahsoka had looked startled by his reaction but when he smiled so did she, nodding in a way that made her montrals shake. “They’re safe, they’re all _still_ safe.”

“And you and Rex-“ Obi-Wan laughed again— it was so reckless and exactly something Anakin would do. Fitting that his captain and Padawan would have come up with the same sort of scheme. “You told the response team that you’d already taken care of it. They thought everyone was dead, but you saved them. _You_ saved them Ahsoka.”

“It wasn’t just me!” She perked up even more, it made Luke babble to match her. “No you see, it’s so much more than that. Of course, no question I wasn’t just going to leave them all there. Not that I know anything about taking care of kids, especially _that many_ , but I knew I had to. But see, it’s not just us. Before he’d even executed the Order, there were a lot of people that doubted the Chancellor, and they’d set things in motion a long time ago.”

Obi-Wan was nodding, he knew this. Bail Organa had expressed that as best as he could in the mess that had been their last meeting. He wasn’t the only Senator who’d wanted to see Palpatine resign- even Padme had wanted it. Bail warned they might hear him siding with the Emperor and being dutiful to the new Empire. It had crushed him to say it, but Obi-Wan and Yoda had expressed their understanding and sympathy. 

The war had complicated things to such an unknown end, and this was only the beginning of exposing Sidious’ influence and corruption. It was easy, in anger, to think fighting back in a grand show was the best way of things. They could have ridden out the frenzy of war and turned everything right back around. But what would that achieve other than mass slaughter? No, they knew it was a sure way to kill off any chance of a successful rebellion before it had even begun. The Senators, those still opposed to the Emperor, would become passive under his rule. They would wait, biding their time, and nursing in secret a rebellion that would see the Republic and democracy brought back. 

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were brimming with excitement. Anakin wanted to feel like a part of it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because while Ahsoka was saving the Jedi Order and legacy, and while Obi-Wan was informed of the eventual political coup, Anakin had been sitting lifelessly. He had killed Master Windu and planned to do anything Sidious asked of him. The only thing that had stopped him was that he had no choice- the Force took from him even _choosing_ to be good. Here they sat, knowing the promise of the future and being able to have the pride that they would have helped the galaxy. All Anakin did was see it destroyed. 

He should have been happy, he should have been _overjoyed_ with Ahsoka here. But he couldn’t bring himself to do more than smile tightly and stuff down the roiling nausea in his throat. 

“What do we need to do?” Anakin asked, voice all serious and desperate. 

“Well, we’re working on setting up a base-“

“A base?”

“A rebel base- _The_ Rebel base. Look-“ Ahsoka sat forward the best she could without squashing Luke, but she was all business now. “It’s more than just me, Rex, a bunch of younglings, and Senators who are already being watched by the Emperor. It’s _everywhere_. Anyone who was ever friends with the Jedi, everyone that was tired of Dooku and Grievous and occupation by Separatist and Republic forces alike. The Empire- Sidious isn’t subtle about his intentions. How much info do you guys get way out on this dust ball?”

Obi-Wan waved a hand, “Not much, but we hardly make social calls.”

“I only get into town to get repairs, and Obi-Wan goes for supplies. He’s made a strict no contact rule.”

Obi-Wan deadpanned, they both knew it was necessary for their safety. It wasn’t the matter of trust Anakin wanted to make it out to be. 

Ahsoka either didn’t notice the passive aggression or she didn’t care- “Well anyway, there’s whispers. They say the Emperor is building a weapon that can destroy planets- just blow them right up. It could take years, but we obviously don’t want to take that long. We want to strike now, before he has time to gather up his army any more, and before he has time to see how huge this Rebellion is.”

Anakin sat back, arms crossed. He looked petulant, irritated. Obi-Wan didn’t like the sight of it. He didn’t even understand why Anakin was acting like this, it was all good news! They’d thought all the Jedi were dead, they’d thought _Ahsoka_ was dead— And maybe it was still true that most of the Jedi were dead, but they had the children. They at least knew that many innocent lives weren’t lost. A legacy was left. Hope, the Order’s future. 

Obi-Wan thought it was all phenomenal, he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to see all the younglings and know everything was alright. He never thought he’d want to be back on a battlefield, but there was an itch under his skin. An itch to fight for justice. Maybe it stemmed from guilt- the blame he still could not shake that so much of this grew from his failure. 

“What do you want us to do?” He echoed Anakin’s earlier question, but when Obi-Wan asked, it came off far more sincere. 

Ahsoka smiled, “We’d be grateful for two former Republic generals. The greatest pilot and negotiator this galaxy has ever seen-“

“No.”

“What?“ Ahsoka shook her head like she’d been pulled out of a dream “Anakin, the rebellion needs you both, not just because you’re phenomenal fighters but- The whole Republic looked to the two of you in times of trouble, they looked to Kenobi and Skywalker to save the day. If we have the two of you-“

“No.”

Anakin stood from the table. His thighs bumped it when he moved and it made his untouched tea slosh out of the mug. He watched it happen, looked bothered by it, but not enough to clean it or do anything other than walk out. The curtain swished behind him, showing how darkly night had fallen outside. Ahsoka looked stunned, speechless. It was dawning on her only now that something about her old Master, the man she saw as her brother, had changed. 

“Have I said something-“

Obi-Wan sighed, “It’s difficult to explain. Allow me-“ he held his hands out to take Luke, “Let me put this little one to bed, and then we can talk.” Shifting to hold the child in one arm, he reached out to rest a hand and squeeze Ahsoka’s shoulder. “It’s very good to see you Ahsoka. I’m glad you’re here.”

Anakin stood on the cool sand. It swirled at his feet in the chill of a night breeze. He breathed in and out, almost like meditation. 

You see, the Force does not define an individual. Quite obviously, the galaxy is composed, by a vast majority, of _non_ -Force sensitive sentients. Of those who do not feel the Force, many don’t even believe in it. There was once a time where the presence and impact of Jedi and Sith were so monumental that there was no denying the constant push and pull of a greater uniting Living Force. But those times were very long past. Many had the ignorant luxury of denying the Force; they could pass it off as myth, or instinct and luck, skill with lying or charisma, or belief in magic. They did not know that it was the darkest parts of the Force that had manipulated their peaceful galaxy and turned it towards a malevolent Empire. They did not know that their suffering was more than just the cruelties of man, but the cruelties of someone corrupted by the worst form of greed and selfishness. 

The Force does not _define_ an individual. If Anakin had not been brought into the Order, he would still have tinkered with droids and worked in Watto’s shop and been in as many pod races as he could. He still would have loved his mother and he still would have been Anakin Skywalker. He still would have been angry and passionate but at the end of all things, good. 

Some part of him knew this. Some part of Anakin knew that losing his connection and control of the Force did not fundamentally change who he was. But to him, he was some ghost of who he was. He wasn’t the Jedi Knight Skywalker, part of the famous team, the Hero with No Fear. He didn’t deserve those titles. 

There is no reason for the Force to ever be linked to a sense of self. Really, any other Jedi might have said, ironically and completely accurately, that the loss was the Will of the Force. They might have rightfully pointed out, if the same had been inflicted on them, that this was the type of loss they were to come to terms with. They had to let their feelings go and accept the new circumstances. Anakin almost wanted someone to come up and tell him that sort of bantha shit- he _wanted_ someone like Yoda or Windu to come up and tell him to move on so he could round it back on them. He wanted to yell that they didn’t understand what it felt like. Even if he’s supposed to let it go that doesn’t change that it was part of him. It was like when he’d lost his mother, and feared losing Padme, and even when he lost his arm all combined into one thing. The Force was a part of him, stripped away. What use was he to anyone like this?

———

Obi-Wan told Ahsoka everything. He told her everything from since he killed Grievous up until her arrival. Well- not _everything_ , but the finer, important and points appropriate to mention. Ahsoka listened. They both knew there was an underlying urgency, and waiting and talking like this was such an odd luxury. They should be rushing offplanet, back to the rebellion. Their last meeting before this was a conflict of their priorities and Obi-Wan had hated the idea that it was the last words he would ever say to her. Now though he could make up for it- they were on the same side and could fight together again. But so long as Tatooine was too dangerous to travel at night, they were stuck here anyways, so they might as well talk. 

She did not know what to say to most of it. She’d never heard of the Force leaving someone before. And the whispers of Sidious’ apprentice weren’t well supported, some phantom threat of a _Darth Vader_ \- but no one had ever seen him. She’d never imagined it could be _Anakin._

She wanted to ask how he was doing, she wanted to _really_ know what Obi-Wan thought, but Anakin came back in. 

“So how did you find us?”

He could admit to himself, quietly, that he was glad to see her, but he was still skeptical. They’d been over it before: Yoda was the only one who knew where they were, and Sidious would never expect Anakin would return to Tatooine. There was no reason for anyone, friend or foe, to find them. He’d intended the question with full seriousness, but Ahsoka crossed her arms and answered like it was some irritating game. 

“Well Master Yoda wasn’t much help. He said something like ‘Go back to where life began for change to happen, the Will of the Force, this is.’ _Completely_ unhelpful, but Senator Organa gave us a tip.”

Obi-Wan would normally frown at the blatant disrespect to the Jedi High Master, but it filled him with too much reassurance. It promised him that Yoda was fine, and so was Bail. And if Ahsoka was already in contact with them then things really were moving along and the Order was already reforming. But apparently Anakin was the one with the ear for detail now, and wouldn’t stop nitpicking her answers until he was satisfied. Obi-Wan was tempted to cruelly point out that it was hardly fair for _Anakin_ to question someone’s honesty and intentions right now- but he kept that to himself. 

“You keep saying we, and now _us_ \- Who else is here?”

It could have easily been a reference to the whole rebellion, or that none of them were ever really alone. But Obi-Wan agreed there was too much of a pattern- Mos Eisley, the trooper. It made sense-

“Was _that_ Rex? You followed me from Mos Eisley— Is Rex disguised as an imperial trooper?”

Ahsoka was grinning again like a genius. Obi-Wan was proud of her, and this was so much like when she was a Padawan- except for the facts that they were on Tatooine and Anakin was the one with the crossed arms and severe expression. 

“He’s not the only one.” Ahsoka ignored the look from her former Master, “It hasn’t been easy but because of Rex we knew about the chips and proved they can be gotten rid of safely. I have a policy against killing any of the clones- not everyone follows it but not everyone in the Rebellion knows them like we did. Every clone we rescue, we give them a choice to fight. They all choose to, for the rest of their brothers and everyone in the galaxy. Together, they’re the 8108th Legion.” She said it like eighty-one oh-eighth.

“My, thats quite the mouthful,” Obi-Wan quipped, the meaning lost on him but there was some spark shooting between Anakin and Ahsoka. The day they’d met. 

“Anyway, Rex and I have been with the Rebellion ever since the Republic fell. There’s a lot to be done and not everyone made coming to get the two of you a priority, so the two us made it our own mission- not that we have that many to report to. Really, the hardest part is civilians. They need to see a public cause that has a chance, but the Empire— Well Sidious did his job well. He got rid of all the Republic and Separatist authorities that anyone could have rallied behind.”

Anakin still only stood just barely inside, leaning against the wall like he wasn’t invited, like it wasn’t _his_ home. “Sidious didn’t do that. I did.”

“What?”

“I was the one who killed the Separatist leaders. I’d already killed Dooku during the siege, and the rest… Sidious gathered them all on Mustafar. He’d promised them a handsome reward. Apparently they didn’t find me handsome.”

“ _Anakin-_ “

“Yeah, they didn’t think it was funny either.” Anakin’s shoulders dropped like just admitting that, and getting his dry joke in, had eased all the tension out of him. 

Ahsoka paused before she could speak again. Obi-Wan had grown used to Anakin’s comments like this- when his face grew somber and he accounted the tales of his slaughter like he was describing the weather. After everything though, that really was the appropriate attention it deserved. There wasn’t time for pity or mourning. Anakin was still driven by apathy, and Obi-Wan by remorse. Someday maybe they could grieve it all properly, let themselves be angry and sad, but now was not that time. 

Ahsoka’s hesitation held with it a very great importance. It cried out with echoes in the Force that this was a pivotal moment- if Mace Windu were here to see it, he would know this was a destined shatterpoint moment for the three of them. Its significance was cosmic. “I know we’re all tired of fighting- _Force_ am I exhausted with it.” She’d wanted to be a Jedi. Not whatever she was now- a nameless insurgent, a Rebel. She had wanted justice, peace- “We had an oath and an Order. We’re still peacekeepers. Please, the two of you might be our only hope. I know that sounds like I’m not giving you a choice, and if the answer is really no then tomorrow Rex and I will leave- but you _know_ this isn’t right. People always looked up to you, _I_ always did, you could do more just by being together and out there than anything else. The two of you are amazing,” she had the quality to her voice that during the war _every_ kid in the galaxy had. They’d all watched the holovids, begging their parents to watch the news and see the two Jedi fighting together in a synchronized twirl of shining, burning arcs of light. Kids had played Kenobi and Skywalker in the crèche, fighting over who got to be which hero and who would have to play the bad guys that _always_ loses- because that was the thing: Kenobi and Skywalker never lost. And here Ahsoka was handing them that opportunity again. It wasn’t for the fame, but for the promise of doing good. Letting people see them do good and strive for it in themselves- a ripple effect of fighting back, fighting for justice that would wave and cascade over the whole galaxy until the Empire fell. 

Anakin feared that without the Force, he would never have the chance to redeem himself. Without his power he couldn’t properly balance the destruction he had caused. But Ahsoka was looking at him with _so much hope_ shining in her eyes that he felt like he was burning. It felt like his limbs were on fire and there was this curling, anxious and terrified feeling in his gut. Obi-Wan was even looking at him just as expectantly. But with Obi-Wan there was another level of patience and an unshakeable faith that Anakin would do the right thing. That made him feel just as unsteady. The ground under him was rushing by but he was stationary and he knew he had to make a choice. He wanted to choose to be good so alright, here it was. The Force had given him a chance again, even if he couldn’t feel it. 

“Alright. Well this Rebel Base better not be on another sand planet. I’d give anything to see some rain.”

Ahsoka was a grinning. Obi-Wan felt his affection just pouring out of him and somewhere deep inside, Anakin was glowing. It was the subdued light of a very far away star, but it had all the heat and gravitational pull of one. Anakin couldn’t have known that the love and hope he felt in that moment wasn’t just his, but it was shared between all three of them. He couldn’t have known yet that those bonds never severed were still tight within him even while his connection to the Force stoked so slowly, imperceptibly back to life. The Force was _singing_ too- belting a whole cosmic opera all for itself, celebrating the future, and knowing that for now, everything was right. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan: but what am I to Anakin???  
> Ahsoka: you’re his husband stupid

Sidious, the once Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Palpatine of Naboo- a genius of a man far underestimated by his peers until it was too late. He evaded the entire Jedi Order while sitting in plain sight, right under their noses. The Sith Lord who spelled out their destruction and now sat as Galactic Emperor. His plans were so thought out, so meticulous, that once he’d set them in motion there was no stopping them. It was perfect. The Jedi would be blamed and killed off: peacekeepers who had failed. The Senate was in his control and eventually would be eradicated entirely as an effete government body, when really wasn’t his absolute control just more effective? It was perfect and he  _ knew  _ it. Basically the whole galaxy knew it. Even the Force knew-

But his plan hinged around one certainty: Anakin would fall. And fall he did! Anakin Skywalker fell absolutely and undeniably to the dark side when he killed Mace Windu, pledged himself to a Sith Master, and flew off to Mustafar to end the war. When the Force intervened, this was something that couldn’t be undone. Even without guidance from the Force, he still lay down in that dark hole of abused power and greed, an abyss of Sith manipulation- he was still shrouded in Darkness. It would only go away when he chose to be good. It could only change if Anakin Skywalker willingly followed the Light. 

Though the Force had taken its gifts from him, that did not mean it lost faith. Instead, it reorganized. It changed its plans around and gave Anakin a second chance. He would know it was a second chance, there was no keeping that from him, but he still had to decide for himself whether to take it. The Force could have instilled in him a desire to be good, it could have stepped in and made him do what it wanted- but what would that achieve? What would that do but rob Anakin even more, taking from him his freedom and capacity to be good? No, Anakin had to  _ choose _ it. 

This was the beginning of the Force’s new intentions: a Republic rebuilt through Passion and Rebellion. It would be founded through the spirits of Faith and Hope. It would see a new Jedi Order, still rooted in Compassion and Peace. It would see Justice eventually restored by the hands and hearts of determined leaders, spurred by love for their people. Because yes, at the center of this rebirth and rebellion was Love. And the Force knew this was how things should be.

———

Anakin never thought he would be sad to leave Tatooine. He wasn’t even  _ sad _ exactly, because that wasn’t something he’d admit to— when he left the first time, it was his mother he was really upset to leave. He didn’t care at all for the planet. And the next time he left it was in a fury, but it was when he and Padmé were answering Obi-Wan’s call on Geonosis, which made Tatooine the last place he’d been before the war started. And now it was also the planet that saw him begin to raise his son- their home together wasn’t much, but it was a home. It was his and Obi-Wan and Luke’s home. On this planet they were so far from the eye of the Empire, and Anakin let himself - deeply, reluctantly, and privately - think of them as a family. Things weren’t as happy as they could have been, but there were still memories there. More than anything, Anakin saw those months colored by two things: his self centered shame and regret, and Obi-Wan’s unshakeable faith in him. If there had to be a third thing it was their shared love for Luke. For all those thoughts and reasons, leaving Tatooine was bittersweet. But he firmly believed this really would be the last time. He’d thought that the other times too, but this time it seemed real. 

And it was true. Anakin Skywalker would never need to return to Tatooine ever again, not unless he wanted to. It was all a matter of choice. 

When morning came and the two suns rose yet again, without saying anything explicitly Obi-Wan and Anakin knew it was the end of their time here. 

They’d agreed the night before that they would join Ahsoka and the Rebellion. The obvious continuation of that agreement was leaving. Unable to go during the night, Ahsoka stayed with them. She slept like the greatest weight had been lifted from her, so when Obi-Wan woke and saw her still sleeping, he noted that she looked as young and carefree as she had when they met. 

Obi-Wan found Anakin outside, staring at the dunes of his home planet. He stood in a near meditative pose, feet shoulder width apart and hands behind his back. Obi-Wan could see the regularity of his breathing, and it reassured him. His mind was a swimming, nostalgic haze. First there was the sight of Ahsoka, now of Anakin. It was like both of their Padawan days simultaneously. Obi-Wan felt content and easy.

“At least you’ll never have to worry about fixing that vaporator again.” He stood passively at Anakin’s side. They did not touch, and he set his gaze out on the same horizon. From a distance, anyone who saw them would have noticed they lined up perfectly with the position of Tatooine’s binaries. 

“I didn’t really mind it.” Anakin said, his voice soft. 

Obi-Wan hardly believed that, but he did know Anakin was always calmer when he had something to do. His room at the Temple had been horrifically strewn with droid and mech parts- a hazard to everyone that entered it. He watched Anakin’s breath catch, and his next exhale came out sharply. 

“Anakin, if you have changed your mind, Ahsoka is sure to understand.”

“It isn’t that,” something about Anakin’s tone, the words sounded empty. It was missing the old, familiar punctuation. Obi-Wan’s title, it should have slipped in there, just like old times. Or maybe Obi-Wan was just so caught in nostalgia that he wanted to hear it, and the absence reminded him things weren’t the same. He wasn’t Anakin’s Master. “I still want to go, it’s just that I know— I know what I did, and I don’t want to go there and- it's like  _ lying,  _ just going to help like this isn’t  _ my _ fault in the first place.”

“Anakin, no one knows what happened-“

“That’s not true. Ahsoka knows, Padmé too… and you know.” Anakin finally looked at him- yes, that was fear in his eyes, Obi-Wan wasn’t imagining that. Such a raw and open emotion that he couldn’t deny it. The only people who knew the whole truth, well those were the people Anakin actually cared about. If it were the whole rest of the galaxy that knew, he wouldn’t care. If everyone knew and they hated him, it wouldn’t matter. If they knew him as Vader, the pawn of the Emperor, a villain to Democracy and Justice, well that would mean nothing so long as the people he loved remembered the Anakin Skywalker that had been: his intentions and his heart. 

Instead, those were the exact people he’d Fallen in front of,  _ they _ were the ones he’d let down. If the Resistance and the galaxy saw him a hero again, that wouldn’t restore what he’d lost. 

“How convenient then, that we’re the people who believe in you most.” Obi-Wan uncrossed his arms, reached out and held Anakin’s shoulder in reassurance. He needed to stop lingering over old moments- but something bitter in him knew this was just like when he told Anakin how worried he was in those final days, when he’d only  _ contributed _ to the worry and expectations that had set Anakin up for failure. 

Though he could not explain it, Obi-Wan had always thought of Anakin as innocent. It was obvious when they first met that given his childhood on Tatooine, he was not innocent in a naive sense, where he did not know the horrors of the galaxy. And as Obi-Wan came to watch him grow, his innocence was clearly not a hope that needed to be shattered either. It was both something more and less than that.  _ More _ in that it was substantially more  _ important _ , more  _ present _ .  _ Less _ in that it was simple. Anakin's innocence, which need never be broken or changed, was that he was always himself. He had been, since his very first moments, only ever determined to be the man he wanted to be. His desire for freedom and podracing, becoming a Jedi, loving Padmé and being her husband, being a proper father to Luke- they were his own desires and no one else’s. For a very long time, it fooled Obi-Wan into thinking Anakin needed to be coddled and his temper skirted. Now he saw it in all its dazzling truth. He could never change who Anakin was, he could never impose his wills on him. Anakin would only seek something if it was what  _ he _ wanted. 

Standing in the light of the suns that had always known him, the Force reverberated with this certainty. Master and Padawan, the older finally realizing the constants of the younger- the unshakable fortitude of his character. It whispered  _ yes, you are right, finally you see _ . He could almost hear the rumbling laughter of his own former Master. Is that why it was funny that Anakin had hit him? Was that supposed to literally knock sense into him? At least he saw it now. 

Obi-Wan believed Anakin could regain his connection to the Force, and that it was essential and inevitable that he do so. He still believed it would happen one day, but it would happen when both Anakin and the Living Force decided it was time. Obi-Wan could will it no more than he could have willed grass to grow from the sand beneath him. The Force was a part of Anakin Skywalker, it was what had brought the two of them together. And now it breathed its commands light across the both of them, it said:

_ Anakin is good, and he must know it. What he will do has always been written into the cosmos, carved and dazzled with constellations. Any choice he makes has spiraled and shattered and occurred a million times over since the first gasp of the Life and will do so until the heat death of the universe. Anakin's life was seen and foretold. He is the Chosen One. He is Balance.  _

This was all grand and assured. It would be comparably easy for the Force to appear in the shape of Qui-Gon Jinn or any of the hundreds of Jedi lost. It could even appear in the still living Force of Shmi Skywalker. It could appear and tell all, every detail of Anakin's growth, his future and his Light. But what good would that do? What good would it be to tell this man, who had been manipulated into destruction, that he still had no choice in his future? It would not change things- in the end the galaxy would prosper regardless. But for the sake of Anakin he did not need to know how surely the Force watched him. He knew he already lived under the gaze of his former Master, and that was pressure enough. 

The Force knew it. Anakin Skywalker was good. 

And now it was a time he proved it to himself. 

Obi-Wan could never understand fully the grief and responsibility on Anakin’s shoulders, nor could he know how secure their destiny was. He only knew that he was Obi-Wan, and this was Anakin, and they would be fighting side by side for a love and life they both believed in until the Force took them, and there they would continue. there would be no end to their days, they would echo across the galaxy forever: in the stories of the Jedi team they once were and every adventure afterwards. They would echo into each place they had ever been. They would be every feeling of peace and affection and exasperation that ever existed.

In the glowing light of Tatooine, knowing these would be their last moments on the planet, Obi-Wan finally understood. 

———

It did not take anything special to see that when they arrived in Mos Eisley, Anakin shook with nerves. He held Luke, and even with his hood up, his tension was palpable. 

“I’ve never seen Skyguy so paranoid before.” Ahsoka teased after they finished trading off both their speeders to a junk stall. That was the last of their ties to Tatooine. For all their months spent there, for all the places that sand had ended up, Obi-Wan didn’t expect to feel this mournful. 

Anakin didn’t hear them, eyeing the ship Ahsoka led them towards even when it was clearly in perfect shape. “Over Luke? There’s no end to his worries.”

When they boarded, there was another reunion. Rex. Anakin did not quite know the pain of seeing the clones turn, so Obi-Wan alone felt the mix of instinctive fear and appreciation. But this was Rex, who smiled when he saw his old generals, and who was a brother to Ahsoka. He had to be told that no, he wasn't going to hurt Luke just by holding him. That didn’t make him look any more comfortable, a former Captain in the GAR during the Clone Wars, nervous to hold a child. 

Obi-Wan watched Tatooine’s surface grow more distant, and he kept watching it draw away until the rush of hyperspace made it disappear. And thus their time on Anakin’s birth planet was over. 

“Wait! I have another surprise!” Ahsoka dashed through the ship, her grin a mischievous promise. Even if she was a leader in the Rebellion now, he could not shake seeing her as the child he’d first met. She came back overflowing with excitement, but her hands were empty. 

“Snips, you’ve got me on the edge of my seat.” Anakin rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan tried not to be bitter about it, but he noticed that there was no hesitation in calling her by her old nickname. They’d picked up with one another like nothing happened, but with Obi-Wan, Anakin was still tense and unsure. 

A  _ very  _ familiar whooping series of beeps cut off any other criticisms. There was the hiss and hum of the droid before he rolled into view, the blue and white of his dome gleaming. 

“Artoo!” Anakin dropped to his knees. He looked over the astrodroid with a gaping grin. He was definitely more polished than he’d ever been in Anakin’s care, but the high pitched beeps proved the excitement was mutual. “Where have you been buddy?!”

“Senator Organa had both him and Threepio, but they’ve mostly been staying on base the past few months.”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed, “And where is this base, you’d still haven’t said.”

Ahsoka shrugged, like keeping those details secret was no matter. “It’s on Dantooine. There’s more than one outpost, of course. I mean it, the Rebellion is  _ everywhere _ in the galaxy. But this is our main base for right now, and we hope to get some real work done before we have to move.”

“Is there a lot of relocating?” Anakin still crouched with Artoo, but his face reflected real concern. He cut a look at Obi-Wan. Of course they hadn’t known exactly what they were getting themselves into, but there was a clear contrast in Ahsoka’s descriptions. Sometimes she made it sound like a formal, organized rebellion, and other times it sounded like there was as much stock in it as a local insurgence. Relocating  _ wasn’t _ reassuring. 

“For some of us,” Ahsoka crossed her arms. He hated to cast such harsh judgment on her, but this wasn’t a critique of a passion project. The whole galaxy was at stake, freedom and peace as concepts. Obi-Wan couldn’t entertain her if this was just misplaced faith. “Our pilots and fighters get moved around a lot. The Senators we have on our side mostly stay on their planets and with their people, spreading our message there. And we have other bases set up for refugees, just so people can see there’s still hope.”

Anakin nodded. He had to convince himself this rebellion had structure for the same reason Ahsoka did. They could not bear themselves if it failed. Neither could Obi-Wan, but his determination to move on and to be steady stood stronger than theirs. He was a rock, and they were more passionate. They also arguably had more to lose. Anakin would always see this as  _ his _ fault and  _ his _ redemption, and it was the Rebellion that made Ahsoka closer to the Force than she’d ever been before. They both had purposes they could not bear to lose again.

The trip to Dantooine would be far from short, having to cross the known galaxy and avoid notice from the ever-growing Empire. Obi-Wan felt the ball of nervousness in his stomach and knew it would last until he saw the base, until he could cover his worries with a cause. He took Luke back from Rex (who looked all too relieved) when the clone said he’d show them to their bunks, if they liked. They might as well settle in. Anakin stood straight again but his hand never left Artoo’s dome. 

“You two go ahead, I want to talk to Obi-Wan for a second,” Ahsoka smiled but he knew the cross of her arms, the slope of her shoulders: there was recognizable insecurity in it. Anakin and he shared a look, and then the doors slid shut and it was just them, former Jedi brought together by the Will of the Force and a Galactic Rebellion. 

He remembered years back, her quiet confidence when she would press her concern about her Master. This was not like that. She had grown up. She was mature enough, wise beyond her years. Still impassioned, impulsive, but perhaps she would have been made a Knight by now if they lived in a more forgiving galaxy. He could already see the grace and importance with which she led her troops, stirred hope in the fight for freedom. She was doing what they always sought- fighting for peace. 

“You know, before I joined Bo-Katan, I was still on Coruscant— Lower levels, of course. And anytime I talked about my past, I couldn’t say I’d left the Order- but the first time someone asked, I didn’t even think when I answered. My speeder was busted but I knew how to fix it- I said my brother who showed me. It just seemed right, and that’s what I started calling him. My brother.” It was an outpouring of sentiment that he understood. He glanced down at her - and realized at some point probably soon, she would grow taller than him - with a nostalgic smile. 

He’d once thought the same and loved Anakin as a brother. He could not say precisely when that love changed. It was certainly not what he felt now. Perhaps things would be simpler if that was all Anakin was to him, but at some point long before Mustafar, Obi-Wan realized they were deeper and more complicated than that. 

Not wanting to leave this admission ignored, Obi-Wan smiled. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but if Anakin is your brother, what did that make me?” He shifted Luke in his arms to keep him from batting at his face. Ahsoka smiled too, open and childish again. If she considered Anakin her brother, then that made Luke like her nephew. Again bitterness surged, that she could so easily find and name her place at Anakin’s side while he floundered. 

But she only grinned more: he was alone in this insecurity. “Oh you know, he’s my  _ annoying  _ brother and you’re his partner who puts up with him, Force knows why. So in the whole galaxy we’re the two who know him best.”

Luke was restless, he’d never been on a ship before and apparently Anakin’s curiosity was genetic. The word was vague, he raised an eyebrow “Partner?”

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. Whatever embarrassment she originally had at admitting her attachment to Anakin vanished. Now his own feelings flung into the spotlight, outlined and made obvious by a teenager. “Yeah, his  _ partner.  _ Do you really need me to spell it out, Obi-Wan? You two are inseparable, it was always like I had two Masters. When he’s older, Luke will know how lucky he is to have both of you too.”

Obi-Wan could feel a warmth on his face. She spoke of more affection than was really there. His feelings, his love, he could never expect it to be reciprocated. Anakin had others, and he’d always had Padmé. He would never impose on that. “ _ Anakin _ is his father, I hardly think-“

“Master.” The title struck him. It silenced him better than just interrupting could have. Oh yes, Ahsoka had really grown up. She was parenting and lecturing just like he once had. It broke him from his self deprecation. Maybe he was just being an idiot. “Give me Luke, and go talk to our boy. It’s a long trip and we’re not going to spend it with the two of you bottling up all your thoughts. Rex and I won’t put up with it anymore.”

Anymore? Had he really been skirting his feelings for that long? Were they so obvious their troops noticed even when he shoved it down?

There was no fighting her as she pulled Luke, giggling and vibrant, into her arms. He got the distinct impression whatever mischief they got up to would make him go grey even faster. 

Obi-Wan’s footsteps sounded hollow on the ship’s floor. It was an old sound, his boots on the impersonal metal of a transport ship. It echoed days of war, days of being the galaxy’s Negotiator. It was not at all the soft padding of movement muffled by sand. It was not the warm, shifting familiarity of Tatooine, proving to be something to miss after all this time. 

Memories of that time, not as long past as it felt, haunted Obi-Wan even when their future glittered unsure and hopeful. 

Artoo glided across the floor, another phantom, and he did not see Rex as he wandered, left to find the bunks on his own. 

Ahsoka’s voice echoed,  _ Partner _ sounded so impersonal but he could not convince himself they were much more than that. 

The cabin doors hummed open. Anakin sat, staring at his right hand, a fist clenching and opening as if clockwork. 

“Is something wrong with it?” Even to himself his voice sounded distant, these were not the words he wanted to say. 

Anakin shook his head, “It’s been acting up for a while, but Tatooine didn’t exactly have what I needed to do anything about it.”

Anakin watched his own hand so intently he missed Obi-Wan’s approach. Some of his nerve responses felt delayed, and the finger joints weren’t as flexible as they used to be— but they were faults so imperceptible no one else in the galaxy would have noticed. 

“Perhaps on Dantooine, you will find things better suited.” He saw Obi-Wan’s hand over the smooth metal a fraction before he felt it, a frazzled sensation running through his wires and nerves. Again, an near imperceptible difference, but it made the feather-light touch all the more unreal. Drifting, Obi-Wan’s fingers spreading over his palm. A flash of a memory that didn’t happen, not to  _ this _ Obi-Wan and  _ this _ Anakin— their hands pushing like repelling magnets around the Force, Mustafar as their smoldering backdrop. A reminder of all the elements that ebbed and flowed both physically and emotionally between them. A constant tension, burning hot, underlaid with power and respect. 

The sensors were not so dulled that he couldn’t feel the texture of Obi-Wan’s hand. Each little ridge and callous and scar was a brand imprinted in the exposed alloy. 

“Anakin, I want to apologize.”

“ _ You _ want to apologize?” Anakin swallowed to cover the pitch and shakiness to his voice. If anyone needed to, it wasn’t Obi-Wan.  _ Anakin _ fell,  _ Anakin _ had lost the Force and killed Jedi and caused all of this-  _ he _ was the reason they fled to Tatooine and Obi-Wan was separated from the life he’d known. 

“Please,” Obi-Wan’s thumb pressed into the center of his palm and Anakin’s hand curled in instinctively. “I ignored what the Force has shown me. I wanted to push you, I cannot say what I was trying to prove or who to.” His words echoed:  _ But that is the one thing I cannot do.  _ Even when Obi-Wan pushed him, he would not hurt him. 

“Perhaps the Council was not right.” Obi-Wan spoke these words once before to Ahsoka, thinking about Anakin.  _ Intending _ to think about Anakin, but maybe thinking about himself all along. He had his own faults, his own attachment. It was something he could not deny, not in those final days of the Republic, with so many Jedi dead, and he knew as sure as anything, that he loved Anakin and probably always would. The greatest hypocrisy, which Anakin had always known, was that the Jedi fought for peace so the galaxy could prosper and change but they never allowed such change within its own Order. The Jedi values remained as they always had, and this was not realized until there was nothing left to stand for. It was not realized until Yoda sent himself off to an empty swamp planet, and Obi-Wan to its ecological opposite, a planet of sand and sun.

“And all this time I have tried to be the Jedi I have always been, and pushed you to find the Force again and do the same. Even when the Force has told me this is not the path, I didn’t listen. The Force— It is  _ everything _ , Anakin. It is love and hate, it is passion just as much as it is peace.” When his hand tightened again, Anakin held it. Obi-Wan stared at the contrast of black and gold metal, the way it wove and held his flesh and blood. He knew how much power surged in that mech arm and in the man who made it. Now both held him tenderly. 

“Whatever our future holds with this Rebellion, whether it brings back the Order or it does not, it seems you were right.” His eyes met Anakin’s, an entreating smile on his face. But Anakin eagerly watched him- not because he was being told he was right, but because Obi-Wan  _ for once _ spoke of love and attachment. “Compassion, encouragement to love, these things I tried to ignore. I believe that is what hurt you most. For that I am sorry, and I always will be.”

Obi-Wan felt how the Force glowed, content and warm around them. Anakin only felt the heat in his face and behind his eyes, emotions welling up as they always did. A gold-tipped electrostatic finger rubbed slow circles into the back of Obi-Wan’s hand. He did not have the words-

Obi-Wan spoke again. Familiar voice so light and teasing that it lifted all weight and guilt away. It plucked his lingering doubts like tufts off his shoulders and cast them away. “And so long as you don’t try to crack open my side again, I will forgive you for anything.” 

They did not need to say more. Obi-Wan forgave him and, well— Anakin was never going to hold those misunderstandings between them anyway. They kept no more secrets, and every burden they would share. Things were finally as they always believed them to be. 

“No promises, Master.” Obi-Wan’s grin was dazzling. Anakin had all the bashfulness of his Padawan days, but Obi-Wan would not hesitate to say he looked beautiful, even in the poor light of the ship’s cabin. Even when they both carried a coating of grimey sand— they were far from the well-trained Jedi warriors they’d been in the war. But that was alright. They could look like anything and still find perfection in one another’s every flaw. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on [tumblr](https://lowstandards.tumblr.com)  
> Comments are very appreciated because I’m a narcissist :)


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